DOOM 2099 47 to 49 Sins of the Father
by DoomScribe
Summary: What's cooking in Africa of 2099?  It could be Doom if the reigning master of mayhem doesn't watch out!  Hints about bones are about to bear fruition.  All while a war of epic proportions wages around him, & Doom remembers more from his shrouded past!
1. Chapter 1 The Prophet of Africa

**Doom 2099 UG, Issue 11 (#47)**

_Gypsy, Sorcerer, Scientist, King . . ._ The man the 20th century vilified and called Doctor Doom has traveled to the year 2099 where the superheroes who once thwarted his plans at world conquest are no more. But his once pristine country of Latveria has been reduced to an inhospitable pool of toxic sludge by a madman wielding unearthly powers. He must renew his home and his power from abroad, in the new world of the future and in the realm of computer cyberspace, all the while asserting his right to rule as . . . DOOM 2099!

**SINS OF THE FATHER, Part One**

"**The Prophet of Africa"**

**Mozambique, East South Africa**

Member of the South African Cooperative Corporation (SACC)

M'tuto shanty town—Official Designation: Division 6 West

_Five Days Ago._

Bodo Dken ran through the dusty streets of M'tuto town clutching a clean scrap of paper torn from the bulletin board in front of the Garment Row industrial complex. It was just after dawn, and the sun was already drying the dew on the clapboard roofs of multicolored lean-to's that sheltered the lowest class of African workers. Thirteen-year-old Bodo paid little mind to the rickety hovels as he raced excitedly through the dirty street. His bare feet found firm footing in the red earth as he dodged empty carts and leapt over supine bodies still sleeping under thin blankets. He ignored the yells and curses that followed him, turning back only to flash a wide white grin that shined mischievously from his jet black face, but never once slowing his rapid pace. In an hour the late shift at the factory would be getting out, and already those destined for the next shift were rousing from their beds and moving toward the factory. Bodo wanted to be home before his mother returned. He stopped outside of his mother's shack for only a moment to watch the guards on the high wall in the distance that surrounded the worker's slum, the steam from their breath still visible in the clear, cool air.

Outside of the stone walls that surrounded Div. 6W, the sounds of war were silent this early morning. The hidden land beyond the wall was the southern border of TKU (the Tanzania-Kenya-Uganda Environmental and Conservation Cooperative) country, and for twelve days the Messengers of the Prophet of Africa had waged a bloody and desperate battle for the reclamation of the northern land that they claimed was holy. Land that was inside the border of the TKU, and not part of the SACC controlled Mozambique territory. The SACC had not punished the Messengers for the violent uprising against their neighbor, but they also did not openly support it. Only one SACC Expeditionary Brigade fortified the Mozambique border, protecting against any possible incursion into their territory by the TKU troops. The two guards on the wall in this section walked slowly along the perimeter, their guns shouldered. They paid no attention to the lean black boy who disappeared into one of the hundreds of thousands of ramshackle hovels crammed shoulder to elbow inside a circle of twenty foot walls covering a space slightly greater than one square mile. Of course, the guards rarely noticed much of anything in Six West except the pervasive stench of uncounted thousands crammed together under the baking African sun.

Bodo stepped into his mother's house, and laid down the piece of paper on the small table by her bed. He fished under his own bed for a short piece of pencil. Returning to the table, he sat down to laboriously write a note to his mother, painstakingly forming each letter until he had written "I go join." Then he added four more letters to spell out his name, "Bodo." He left the paper on the table, where his mother would see it, and slipped silently out the door.

The torn bit of paper was a flyer, nicely printed in plain black letters with the SACC symbol on the corner. It said, "Volunteer! All boys over 15 welcome to fight for our country and our freedom!"

Less than twelve hours later, Bodo and a dozen other boys were walking with two of the tall, uniformed Messengers of the Prophet. Bodo was outside of the protective walls of his town for the first time in his life, and the vista before him was awe inspiring. He had seen the wide-open spaces of the TKU from the tall buildings of the township, a vast open tableau of unimaginable space. Occasionally, he had even seen small portions of the great herds that grazed on those green plains. But to actually stand there, outside of the walls and the roofs that sheltered them, was at once overwhelming and frightening.

Dusk had fallen by the time Bodo and the other boys lined up with the hundred or so Messengers who waited patiently in a shallow trench twenty meters outside of the city walls. Bodo had lied about his age, but he was tall for thirteen, and well matched with the other boys. The Messengers themselves were a varied group of stern faced black men, clean shaven with short cropped hair, modeled after the Prophet. They wore brilliant white shirts, and helmets and guns provided by the SACC in an uncharacteristic display of solidarity. If Bodo had looked closer, he would have seen that many of the men had no guns at all, but he was fascinated with the weaponry and hoped that he would get a gun also. So far, the boys were provided neither equipment nor weapons, and no uniform other than the ragged clothes they wore. Bodo watched closely as one of the men pulled a tall boy out of their group and led him out of the trench to a breach in the barbed wire fence that separated them from the lands of TKU. The Messengers in the trench looked away, and no one spoke. On the wall behind them, the SACC soldiers could be heard laughing at a joke someone had told.

Five minutes later there was a terrific explosion, a ground shaking boom that sent the group of boys diving instinctively to the ground. A machine gun fired somewhere in the distance, but the Messengers around the boys did nothing. Silence. Then the man who had pulled the first boy aside gave a sharp order, and two more boys were pulled out of the trench. Bodo was one of them.

Bodo felt his heart catch in his throat as he looked out upon the plain before him, seeing the war zone clearly now for the first time. The wide valley before him was littered with dead and mutilated bodies, shallow craters beside them silent testimony to the reason for the slaughter. Land mines! One crater was still smoking a short distance away, and half of the boy that had gone before them lay in the red earth beside it. Bodo looked away, but the leader pulled him forward.

"Cross the field," he instructed the first boy, "the Prophet will guide you. He is out there, waiting for us to retake our land. Have no fear, and you will be safe."

The other boy looked wordlessly out at the deadly track before him, but Bodo could not see his eyes. He wondered if they were as full of fear as his own surely were.

"Go!" the soldier instructed, pushing the boy forward. Slowly, hesitantly, the boy began to inch forward through the soft dirt, eyes straining in the growing darkness. The soldier grabbed Bodo and instructed him harshly, "Follow in his footsteps, if he fails, step not that way. Understood?"

Bodo nodded yes.

"Then have no fear, and go with the Prophet! Go!"

Bodo watched the boy in front of him, then slowly, stepped in his steps, feeling the soft warm dirt beneath his bare feet. He thought of his mother, and felt the tears rising in his eyes. Then he fought them down. He would not be afraid, he vowed, he would believe that the Prophet would guide him. He moved his feet slowly but confidently in the tracks. The elder boy in front of him looked back once, and Bodo saw the whites of his eyes, and the tears that glistened there. He was a few meters ahead of him, just passing the remains of the boy that had gone first. Slowly, he stepped past the steaming corpse and inched forward into the darkness.

Bodo squinted into the gloom, and reached out with all his senses. There was a faint humming, seemingly coming from just below the surface of the earth, and there was a sharp odor too, acrid and pungent. Not at all like the smell from the earth and grasses. He approached the dead boy. The odor was stronger here, coming from the crater yes, but also from all around them. Bodo stopped, and crouched, touching the ground carefully with his fingers. There was something . . . moving.

The explosion caught him completely off guard, and he was pushed backward over the corpse behind him, instinctively covering his head with his arms. Dirt and other debris rained down onto him from the crater where the boy in front of him had stood an instant before. Bodo lay there for a long while as the smoke drifted lazily over him, too scared to move, the force of the blast still ringing in his ears. Finally he raised his head, and was immediately repulsed by the grisly corpse beside him, instinctively scrambling away. Then, horror struck, he realized he had lost the footsteps of the boy who had gone before, and Bodo sat on his butt in the middle of the field in the dark, and began to shake.

Until he caught a whiff of that odor again.

He automatically froze, scanning the dirt ahead with his eyes. The full moon was just beginning to rise, lending its feeble light to the crushing darkness. Then he saw it, like a phantom just beyond the normal range of vision, moving under the sand. It approached him, and he held his breath. His eyes focused on where he was sure he had seen the movement, still not certain that he had seen what he thought he saw. He sat there silently for an eternity, his heart beating furiously. The thing didn't move. Someone shouted from the trenches, but he ignored it. Finally, with his free hand, Bodo felt for a rock in the sandy dirt beneath him. With a gentle flick of the wrist, Bodo threw the small stone, as far as he could without moving, never taking his eyes off of the spot. The instant he heard the rock land in the darkness with a quiet thud, he saw the thing move. He saw it! It moved away into the night to where he could no longer see it, and with it, that bitter odor also left.

Slowly, Bodo stood up, his eyes and ears straining for any sign. He picked up another rock, and threw it as far as he could. Then he turned to face his goal, the gentle mound of hills that beckoned in the distance. He searched the ground for more rocks, picking them up without moving his feet, and placed them in his pockets. Then he began a gentle rhythmic pacing: step, stop, throw a rock. Step, stop, throw. Step, stop, throw. All the while he listened, waiting for that odor to return, watching the ground in front of him carefully. He felt a confidence, and a burgeoning feeling of accomplishment. He began to believe that the Prophet really was watching over him. Then, he ran out of rocks.

He had already gone much farther than the other boys, and the ground was less torn up here, with small clumps of grass pushing through the heavy red clay. He reached down with his hand, carefully feeling along the ground, but there were no rocks within reach. He felt a gnawing sense of fear return to the pit of his stomach. There was that humming again, louder now, uniquely dangerous in its pitch. He looked back the way he had come, but the safety of the town walls seemed light years away.

When he turned around again, it was to behold a wondrous site. Not more than thirty meters away, stood a lone impala. She was a beautiful tawny brown, with spindly legs and a graceful neck, and a distinctive white underbelly. She had appeared out of nowhere, and she stepped lightly across the deadly expanse of open plain with impunity. Delicately she reached down and pulled free a clump of grass, and began chewing it.

Bodo had never seen such an animal. He was taken aback by her simple beauty. He watched her, fascinated, as he stood perfectly still in the darkness. Her ears moved back and forth, searching the night for sounds of danger. Suddenly thoughts of dangers as menacing as the deadly smart mines began to flow into Bodo's consciousness. This was the wild Africa he had never known, but he knew that there were ferocious creatures here - lions, cheetah, and hyena! He felt his breath sharply inhale.

The impala raised her head, and stared directly at him. Bodo looked back, marveling once again at her finely tuned senses. They locked eyes. Her big doe like orbs caught the light from the settlement in the distance, and glowed eerily. Then like a flash she bounded away, leaping high into the air in an instinctive defense mechanism designed to confuse predators. Bodo watched her leaping silhouette with curiosity and regret, as she faded from view like an angel.

An angel sent to guide him he thought, returning to his predicament. Why had the smart mines not destroyed the impala, he wondered? Perhaps if he were to move like the impala. Move like the impala. He gathered his breath and his courage once more, and tensed his cold and stiff leg muscles for one last try. He leaped into the air, as high and as far as he could imagine. The instant he landed he leaped again, gaining momentum as each leap brought him closer to his goal. He changed direction slightly, his movements purposefully erratic and unpredictable. Each time he landed safely, he said a prayer of thanks to the impala before leaping off again in the next direction. Finally, he reached a barbed wire fence three feet high at the edge of the plain, and with the last of his energy he leapt over it. He tripped as his foot brushed the wooden upright, and his spent legs gave way beneath him, sending him sprawling unto the hard ground in a cascade of red dirt.

Breathing heavily and still lying on his side, he looked back at the barbed wire fence, still too frightened to try to move. A sign was posted there, clearly warning of the danger of the mine field beyond with words and pictures. He realized at last that he had made it! He had crossed the field! He lay on the ground staring up at the moon, his breath ragged, but with enough left to scream in giddy triumph at the top of his voice! Laughter and relief and all of the tension that had built up inside him came out at once in a joyous whoop!

He turned over onto his stomach as he heard the click of weapons a short distance behind him. Then, like an idiot, he remembered that he was now in enemy territory. Three TKU soldiers faced him, weapons drawn. They were crouched low to the ground, inching toward him as they motioned for him to come forward. Behind them, he could see the bunker of earth that shielded at least another dozen guns pointed his way. He raised his hands in defeat, slowly rising to his knees.

"Don't stand up boy!" one of the soldiers shouted.

Too late.

A muffled gunshot in the distance heralded the approach of the bullet, which pierced his heart as Bodo stood with arms upraised. His body buckled as blackness engulfed him, and he fell face first into the ground.

The marksman on the wall surrounding Division 6 West lowered the rifle from his shoulder. Beside him, the Lieutenant verified the kill with his night vision scope.

"Well done," the Lieutenant stated coldly. "Wouldn't want the little darkie to fall into enemy hands," he added with a smirk.

"Or get too used to the wide-open spaces," the marksman added. "God knows it's bad enough having all these Messengers wandering around outside."

"They have their purpose though," the Lieutenant added casually. "It's not like there aren't enough of them to go around!"

With that the men laughed seditiously in the darkness, as they climbed down to make their report to the SACC Commander.

**Chenaya, capital city of Myridia.**

Billy Sinclair paced nervously in the windowless waiting room. He was uncomfortable in the formal suit, and had readjusted the tie no less than seven times since his arrival at the Myridian Royal Palace. He glanced at the vid screen, and was distracted for a moment at some piece of skin on display, before bored, he again turned away. It had taken him no less than a week to gain an audience with the new King of Myridia, and he was anxious to get this over with and return to the wide-open spaces of the TKU plains. He had recently learned that the fighting with the Messengers was escalating in the south, and he knew that his expertise was needed there now. Yet despite his appointment, Doom was making him wait well beyond it. His eyes found the time piece on the wall. Sixty-four minutes had passed. He missed his gun, and the empty space on his back where the rifle would usually rest felt cold and exposed. He sat down and thumbed through an old print magazine that he had grown tired of fifty-two minutes ago. The only other person in the room, the receptionist, smiled at him in a cold, official way. She continued to work via a c-space neural jack, her eyes tactfully avoiding his unspoken question. Facing a charging elephant would have been easier, Sinclair thought.

He looked at the clock again. Sixty-seven minutes. "Bureaucrats," he muttered disdainfully under his breath, and returned to his pacing.

Doom was also pacing, slowly, as two men and a woman from his foreign relations cabinet were updating him on the situation in South Africa. His silver boots clicked steadily on the cold tile floor. Beside him, a solid wall of computer equipment fifteen feet high glowed with eerie green readouts in overlapping displays of flat flickering vid screens and holographic 3D images. Doom did not look at his servants as they spoke. His masked face was hidden within the deep green folds of his hooded cloak.

"The rebels are led by a group that call themselves the Messengers of the Prophet," one man was saying. "They are a religious cult that has flourished in the impoverished regions of South Africa, despite attempts over the last 20 years by the SACC to eradicate their belief in the coming of the Prophet. This recent uprising was apparently sparked when one of the Messengers allegedly saw a vision of the Prophet, hovering over the hills just north of the M'tuto shanty town. The Messengers have declared the region "Holy Land," and are fighting to gain control of it."

"The SACC has not supported the attack on TKU by the rebels, but neither have they attempted to terminate the hostility," the woman reported. "Intelligence reports have one special brigade from SACC stationed at the border with only minor artillery. Despite the recent attacks against TKU, the SACC have engaged only peripherally in the current fighting. Several intercepted communiqués have reinforced the speculation that the SACC are acting only to protect their own borders from any TKU counteroffensive or incursions."

"Our position remains neutral, with existing select economic sanctions against the Mozambique colony still in place due to their continuing racist policies." The third man spoke in a calm monotone. "In light of the suspicious nature of this conflict and our own fragile recovery status following the economic instability in the Americas, I suggest that we concentrate our resources at home, rather than risk fiscal collapse by engaging in an unprofitable conflict abroad."

Doom turned to face him. The gentle sunlight from the large picture window behind him cast his cloaked face in shadow, but the red of his eyepieces glowed brightly within that veil of darkness. He paced slowly and deliberately toward the third man. The other two stepped discreetly away from their companion as he approached. Doom stopped, his armored chest inches from the shorter man's face. The silver of his mask gleamed in the pale light threateningly. "Do not presume to dictate Myridian policy, Mr. Ryan," Doom growled softly, yet loud enough for the others to hear. "Or you will find yourself the most highly overqualified worker in the marble quarry!"

"Yes, s- sir." Mr. Ryan backed away slightly, his face ashen.

"You are here to provide information only," Doom continued, his anger apparent. "My word is Law now, and I alone decide which direction Myridia will follow. You would be well advised to remember that . . ."

"Lord Doom?" An intercom interrupted his tirade.

"What is it?" Doom answered, equally displeased at having his speech disrupted.

"Prime Minister Lange on the vid," the receptionist announced.

"Very well, put him through," Doom motioned to his audience to step out of view of the vid screen as he subtly adjusted his cloak so that it fell smoothly to the floor. On the near life size vid screen before him, the image of a slightly heavy, older man emerged, seated behind a broad wooden desk. His face was well aged and pale to the point of wan, but his hair was jet black, obviously dyed, fading to gray at the hairline. He wore a dark suit which only served to enhance his ashen complexion, and reading glasses which he vainly removed the moment Doom appeared before him. Behind him stood one of his governors, and the red and gold flag of the SACC.

"Lord Doom," the Prime Minister greeted him. "Thank you for returning my call."

"Prime Minister." Doom replied coldly, bowing slightly, but never taking his eyes off of the other leader. "I take it you are calling to request intervention in the recent unrest at your northern border."

The Prime Minister seemed slightly taken aback. "I had heard that you were direct," he commented. "I see that was an understatement."

"My time is valuable, Prime Minister," Doom stated smoothly, "And I have little patience for idle banter or the inane pleasantries of diplomacy. What is it that you want?"

The Prime Minister coughed, as he successfully regained his composure. "As you are probably well aware, the rebels continue to press against the TKU, and we can spare neither troops nor supplies to hold them back. They are possessed of a religious fervor that denies all logic. Our factories are being taxed by the subsequent loss of productivity. We are a poor nation, Lord Doom, barely above the non-industrialized third world countries in GNP. We are struggling to put behind us decades of poverty and economic mismanagement. We ask neither for troops nor aid, but for relief from the economic sanctions which continue to leave us vulnerable to our more powerful neighbors." His words were clipped and precise, with little inflection or tone, as if reading from a script.

Doom turned his back to the vid screen in a moment of quiet contemplation. Over his shoulder he asked, "Has your desire to rise above third world status enlightened you toward rethinking your apartheid political and economic practices?"

"I see that you have been misinformed, Lord Doom," the Minister answered smoothly. "We are a free society. The blacks are welcome to own a business, or to participate in government. For the most part, they choose not to. They welcomed the guidance of the SACC when their country was in ruins. They had tried for decades to rule themselves, only to fail miserably. The early white settlers of Africa who were my ancestors recognized this also, not out of malice or contempt, but out of concern for the future welfare of the blacks. They are like children, you see, and I am their godfather. We do not make racist policies here; we only act upon the will of our people."

"So I see," Doom turned back to face the screen. "So the will of the blacks in your country has been to forfeit their native lands, to forgo any advanced education, to work for slave wages or indentured servitude, and to subjugate themselves to rule by the white minority because they see you as a . . . father figure?"

"Yes," Prime Minister Lange answered with a smile. "Much like the history books claim Doctor Doom ruled over yet was beloved by his people of Latveria in the latter half of the twentieth century."

Doom was silent as his eyes flashed brightly within the folds of his cloak. His cabinet members cringed visibly at the Prime Minister's off handed comparison, wondering what reaction that comment would elicit of their often short tempered ruler. Then, unexpectedly, Doom's head went back in a robust and unforced laugh. "An amusing if substantially inaccurate comparison, Prime Minister," Doom replied at last. "However I can appreciate how the elements of history may have been twisted by the, shall we say, misinterpretations of the liberal media. We are perhaps similar in that we have both been unfairly maligned."

"One can hardly expect someone from the outside to fully understand the complex vagaries of a singularly symbiotic social system," the Prime Minister added with a smug smile.

"Indeed." Doom was silent for a moment, then asked, "Tell me Prime Minister, were you to realize additional revenue from relief of existing economic sanctions, what percentage of those funds would be invested in a military action against the TKU?"

The Prime Minister paused as the governor behind him whispered instructions to him via a com-link. "I assure you, we have no grand designs against the TKU, only that our people should be content in their lives. Given certain relief, we would be better able to initiate negotiations with the TKU leaders, to reach an amenable solution to this disruptive conflict."

"Negotiations, ah yes," Doom replied softly. "Very well, Prime Minister, you will have my answer within the hour." Doom gave a silent signal that cut off the transmission before the Prime Minister could reply.

Doom paced to the window overlooking the fair city of Chenaya, economic and spiritual heart of Myridia. Gleaming spires pierced the blue skies, and international commerce was steadily recovering on the heels of their recent data losses. But his advisor was correct; they were still too fragile to risk stretching resources in an unnecessary and destructive confrontation. He picked up the brilliant white bone that had been handed to him an hour earlier. Perhaps, there was still another way, he thought absently.

The woman behind him spoke up. "Shall we lift economic sanctions against the SACC during this crisis?" she asked timidly.

"Crisis?" Doom muttered absently, stepping away from the window to address his cabinet. "Tell me Miss Broderick, how many palaces does Prime Minister Lange have in his impoverished state of Mozambique?"

"Um, fourteen, I believe, Lord Doom," she answered.

"Fourteen, all his private residences," Doom mused slowly. "And how many yachts anchored at Beira?"

"Two," Mr. Ryan answered, "plus one at Maputo and two more in the South African provinces."

"And jets?"

"Dozens perhaps," Miss Broderick answered, still quizzically. "Some of those are military aircraft though, and others are used for official state functions."

"Yes, of course," Doom answered. He leaned on the console that overlooked the massive electronic world map covering the wall of the conference room. He still held onto the strange white bone with one hand. "And how many square feet do you suppose, is provided to each black worker as a place to live in the slums he dares to call residential divisions in each of the thousands of shanty towns surrounding his theoretically impoverished factories?"

The three cabinet members looked at each other quizzically and shrugged. Mr. Ryan answered. "I have heard that they average ten square feet, maybe less."

"Yes, hmm . . . ten by ten," Doom lowered his head for a moment, and then turned to his cabinet members with a look of venomous outrage on his silver mask. He pointed the bone at them for emphasis, "The crisis Mr. Lange refers to is a convenient lie, as are any intentions he may have of entering into peaceful negotiations with his northern neighbors! I refuse to be bullied by the corrupt economic machinations of a privileged class bent on exploiting the innocent with their archaic racist indifference! Doctor Doom was many things in the past, but my people were never left to want for food nor shelter! This malodorous despot has no such reservations, his true motives hide behind a veil of transparent lies and puerile pontificating! He squanders his time in luxurious settings while the blacks under his 'fatherly' care scrabble in the dirt! His goals are not the least bit altruistic, but are solely aimed at the economic gain of the ruling class!"

"Lift the economic sanctions? No! Never! We will intensify our efforts! Increase the liens on imports, double the taxes on energy provisions! Discontinue all exports! I want you to squeeze his economic lifeline until his balls ache! There will be no mercy from Myridia for the heartless!" Doom ignored the nervous blush of Miss Broderick, and turned away, even as he dismissed them. "Now go!" he ordered brusquely. He faced the world board again. "No, Mr. Prime Minister," he said quietly to himself, "you and I are nothing alike!"

When his cabinet members were gone, he activated the intercom. "Send in Mr. Sinclair," he ordered the receptionist. By the time the hunter from TKU had entered the room, Doom had regained his composure and was quietly staring once again at the bone in his hands. In the hour that it had been in his possession, Doom had already done a preliminary analysis using his armor's computerized systems. He knew from simple observation that it was a human bone, the left femur, to be exact, but that it was much denser than normal human bone. Even more intriguing were the set of black markings, a bar code stamp one inch long, the only flaw on the entire surface. He had already deciphered that code, and he knew that the stamp read "DOOM 2080 - Pacific NA".

Billy Sinclair stepped eagerly into the room just behind the stone faced guard who led him in. Doom stood above him on the raised platform, standing alongside a wall of impressive electronic equipment. The armored monarch appeared to not have heard them enter the room, and stood without acknowledging them for several minutes. Sinclair fidgeted just a little, noticing with interest that Doom did indeed have the bone that he had been forced to relinquish in order to be granted this private audience.

Finally, Doom addressed the guard with a gruff order, speaking without looking in their direction. "Leave us."

The guard bowed once and marched out of the room.

Doom didn't look at Sinclair until the doors closed behind the guard. Finally, he turned and looked down upon his visitor with an intimidating stare. "Mr. Sinclair," he started smoothly, "or should I say Lord William Winston Sinclair, III, Earl of Ellisland, fifth generation member of the House of Lords, and only son of William and Lia, joint conservators of the northern branch of the Icy Eye corporation?"

Sinclair grimaced imperceptibly, and bowed. "Your highness," he said slowly as he carefully raised his eyes toward Doom, "considering that we parted on poor terms, I suspect that my father, the Earl, has accepted that I am no longer entitled to his position or his title. That honor will no doubt be passed on to one of my more worthy cousins, if it hasn't already. Against his wishes and advice, I have made my own path in Africa, and hold no titles save my name."

"You might be surprised to know then, Mister Sinclair," Doom continued, "that your father still recognizes you as his sole heir. According to court documents I reviewed this morning."

Sinclair was silent, not prepared for this unexpected revelation. It was a little unnerving, the way this Doom seemed to know so much about him. Maybe that was the point. "You have gone to a lot of trouble to find out about me," he finally said. "But that is not why I came here."

"Yes, I know," Doom said. "You want Myridia to become allies with TKU in their little border squabble. It seems that I have been courting suitors all morning, and frankly it bores me. But you have thrown some spice into the soup. You brought me this," he gestured with the long bone. Doom stepped down the two wide steps and approached Sinclair menacingly, his green cloak floating gently behind him. "And a mystery that begs solving. It is all too convenient, Mr. Sinclair. Which is why I want to know, who are you really working for?"

"I've been at TKU for eight years," Sinclair protested. "I haven't been in contact with my family in all that time. I swear, that's the truth."

"You don't deny that your family has ties with the Icy Eye Corp?"

"No, why should I?"

"Because this, Mr. Sinclair," Doom pointed to the bone, "this is no ordinary bone, and my suspicions are that you are a spy. Perhaps this is meant to discredit me, to breed suspicion of my identity. Or is this supposed to lure me into joining your little war? I don't like traps, Mr. Sinclair and I despise corporate spies even more."

"I am no corporate flunky," Sinclair denied emphatically.

"Then where did you get this," Doom demanded, "and where is the rest of the skeleton?"

"That," Sinclair pointed, "believe it or not came from the den of a man-eating lion we captured. As for the rest of the skeleton, we weren't able to find any more pieces. But it didn't just fall from the sky. The rest of it has to be there too, somewhere."

Doom eyed him stoically, and Sinclair felt his heart pounding in his chest.

"Do you have any idea how preposterous that sounds?"

"It's the god's truth," Sinclair added quickly.

"Which god remains to be seen," Doom replied irreverently. "However, since I would suspect that my detractors would be able to concoct a more convincing lie blindfolded, I will take you at your word." He paused, and added with implicit threat, "For now." Then continued, "Where exactly is this lion's den?"

"It's on a kopje south west of Cavalier Warren," Sinclair replied easily. "I'll have to show you."

Doom glanced up at his map board briefly. "Naturally that is close to where the fighting is," he commented cynically.

Sinclair nodded. "When I left, they were still far to the south, but it appears that the rebels have made some advances," he said sadly. He sighed, and shifted his tie nervously. "I won't lie to you," he continued, "the TKU is not the unstoppable giant we were once thought to be. We have a small population and a tremendous amount of territory to cover, and to tell the truth we have been remiss in our military readiness of late. For fifty years or more, we've relied on the Perimeter Automated Defensive system designed by our founders. It guarded our borders and skies with amazing accuracy. But lately it seems that the systems are failing, deteriorating due to lack of proper care. We have some of the finest scientific minds in the world working for us, but they are primarily eco-scientists, geneticists, botanists, biologists and the like. They have been stumped by PAD's complex engineering, and we have been stifled in our efforts to repair it. In the interim, we have been forced to teach ourselves to fight in the conventional manner. The last time the TKU sent a mission across our border, frankly, we were just bloody lucky. This time around, I fear the odds are against us. Even if every man, woman, and child in the warrens were to arm themselves, we would be hopelessly outnumbered and under gunned."

"And you think that I will even the odds in your favor?" Doom stepped back up to the world board, and sat down in the control chair. He stared languidly back at Sinclair. "TKU has been historically elitist, exclusionary, and vocal in world affairs only through their staunch abstinence. There would be no likely repercussions should Myridia remain neutral in this affair."

Sinclair stepped up to the board and stared back at Doom. "The repercussions would be enormous," he protested, "should the TKU fall, the world would know a great loss that can never be replaced. Where else in the world are there wild territories as pristine and unspoiled? We have seen what other governments have done to Africa, what is to stop the same from happening to us should we fall? Nothing. Besides," he continued coolly, "in a matter of days the site where the remainder of those bones are hidden may be overrun with fighting. That bone is tougher than normal, but I doubt it would survive a plasma blast or subatomic mortar fire. Then how will you solve the mystery?"

"Have a care, Mr. Sinclair," Doom said angrily rising from the chair to approach him, "my labs are sufficiently sophisticated to analyze the origin of the skeleton from the sample you so conveniently provided. Furthermore, nothing is to prevent me from negotiating with the SACC to protect the lion's den and take control of it after the TKU has been forced out."

"You wouldn't . . ."

"What is to stop me?" Doom replied. "You want my help, but you offer me nothing in return. Nothing that is, that I don't already have," Doom added, laying a metal glove on the bright white bone. "Unless the TKU can offer something better?"

Sinclair suddenly felt like he was in way over his head. He stared up at that unreadable metal mask. Maybe he should just go home, he thought, send someone else to deal with Doom. All of this political maneuvering was beyond his expertise. But there was so little time. So little time, and Doom knew exactly what he was doing. Suddenly Sinclair wondered what his father would do in this situation, and that too surprised him. He hadn't thought of his father in years.

"I can't offer anything, officially," he started.

"Then you have wasted my time as well as yours," Doom turned his back to Sinclair.

"But I can promise to provide you full access to our research facilities, and the cooperation of our staff," Sinclair continued willingly.

Doom turned around slightly, and glowered back at him coldly. "And?", was all he said.

"And . . . and access to our secure data banks," Sinclair added with a slight nervous gulp.

Doom walked back to where Sinclair stood waiting, hands behind his back as he mulled over the offer. "Hmmm, yes," he said slowly, "well, that will do." He passed close by Sinclair, and paused ever so slightly next to him. "For a start," he added, and then continued his steady march towards the door. "Meet me at your transport in one hour."

Sinclair sighed heavily as Doom disappeared behind the door, but he wasn't sure if it was relief or the beginning of something worse.

**Tanzania-Kenya-Uganda Environmental and Conservation Cooperative (TKU)**

Cavalier Warren

Bodo Dken had been aware of lights and movement around him for what could have been days, or maybe only hours. He could even remember talking to someone once, and eating a little food. Mostly though he slept, and felt warm and comfortable on a soft bed with clean sheets, and air that smelled like flowers. There was a pain in his chest that came and went with his sleep, and once he wondered if he was dead, and he was frightened for a moment, until he realized that he didn't really care. He didn't have a care about anything.

Until the man came who shook him awake.

"Wake up, wake up," the alien voice told him. "Can you move, young mister?"

He was so comfortable, he thought, his eyes still closed. Why would he want to move?

"Please, it is very urgent. You must wake up."

Bodo opened his eyes and blinked sleepily. A man who was neither white nor black was standing over him. There was a bright light behind him, so that Bodo had to squint to see. "What? Who are you? What do you want?" His mouth was dry, and his throat felt raw.

"Ah, very good, that is a step," Musleh answered the boy, "but I am afraid that introductions will have to wait until another time. You must tell me if this hurts too much." With that Musleh wrapped the boy in the sheet and lifted him out of the bed. "We must hurry. The warren has been invaded."

Bodo let himself be lifted, feeling strange and light-headed still, his arms and legs dangling uselessly. He watched as the man took him out of the room into the hallway. The light was brighter here, and there were many people running about. Bodo could tell that they were afraid, but he was still too drugged to be alarmed.

"Are you a black man?" he asked lazily. "You don't look black, but you are not white either."

Musleh smiled as he worked his way through the jostling people, careful not to bang the boy's head anywhere. "I am from India," he answered. Then stopped to address another man, who looked to be a soldier. "Take two men and a stretcher," he ordered, "there are more patients in the east wing."

To Bodo's surprise, the white man saluted the dark man who carried him, and did as he was told, grabbing two other white soldiers and racing back the way they had come. He watched them retreating down the hallway over Musleh's shoulder in an amused sort of daze. He felt his senses returning slowly, and he was also beginning to feel a slight pain in his chest. This was a strange world, where dark men gave orders to white men, he thought. Then he asked suddenly, "Am I dead?"

Musleh laughed shortly. "No, young mister," he said, "we are not dead yet."

Bodo looked down the hall. Musleh was forced to slow down as the crush of people rushing through a doorway caused a temporary jam. "But I was shot . . ." he said finally, the memory returning vaguely, in the realm of deja vu. "In the chest." he placed his hand over his heart. There was a large bandage there, and it itched a little too. Now he was truly frightened, as fragmented memories of that night began to return.

"Not to worry," Musleh answered, calming the boy. "The doctors are very clever here. They grew you a new heart, and now you will be just fine."

"Oh," Bodo said as they stepped through the doorway into a large courtyard. There were streets and buildings and a fountain, and everything he would expect from a small town, except there was no sky. Only a high ceiling and a bank of brilliant lights shone down from above.

"Where is the sky?" he asked.

Musleh was looking around the courtyard for a nurse or someone to take care of Bodo, but there was no one left. "We are underground," he answered, as he walked briskly down the main street. "Many meters below the surface. The lights above are our sky here. Just like the sun, you see? You can tell the time of day, same as outside." Bodo could barely see the hidden tracks that the lights moved on, simulating the movement of the sun. But he could see clearly that it was almost midday. He wondered if it was almost midday outside, too.

Suddenly there was a piercing siren wail that filled the courtyard, and all the people left in the open courtyard hurried faster now, rushing down several side streets toward heavy doors in the distance. Musleh picked one street and ran quickly down it, jostling Bodo slightly as he moved so that the pain in his chest was more intense, but Bodo said nothing. They reached the circular doorway and slipped through, and Bodo watched as the heavy door closed behind them, cutting them off from the now empty courtyard with its simulated sunlight.

Ahead of them, people were piling into a long train, and when it was full it whisked them away down a darkened tunnel, and another one moved in to take its place. There were more guards here, and high tech guns like he had never seen. Bodo remembered the Messengers, and the old weapons that they had carried. But here there were white and black and every color in between, and so he knew that he was not in Mozambique anymore. He was a prisoner of the TKU. Musleh set him down on a seat of the next train, and sat down beside him. He heard the people around him talking of invaders, in the tunnels, and war. He was afraid again, in this strange place with strange people all around.

Musleh settled in and relaxed only when the train sped them off down the tunnel. "It is a sad day indeed," he muttered, "when those SACC raiders invade our homes." He turned to his young charge and extended his hand. "My name is Musleh Al-Hasid," he said, "fortune hunter, traveler, and sometimes a soldier. Pleased to be of service."

Bodo shook his hand cautiously, and finally said, "Bodo Dken. Am I . . . am I going to go to jail?" He suddenly thought of his mother and his home, and that he may never see it again, and he felt a lump rise in his throat, and tears came unbidden to his eyes.

Musleh sighed and smiled reassuringly at the boy. "No, generally we feed trespassers to the lions," he said with a wink.

Bodo gasped, then saw that Musleh was kidding. "What lions," he said incredulously.

"Well, that one for starters," Musleh answered. Bodo saw that the train had stopped, and in the tunnel where they were now disembarking there was a large black woman in a white coat. Beside her on a leash was the biggest animal Bodo had ever seen, a huge male lion with a thick black mane and paws as big as shovels. The animal seemed docile enough, but it yawned slightly, and all the people getting off the train gave it a wide berth. Bodo looked at those huge teeth and could see why.

"Do you think you can walk now, Master Dken," Musleh asked, "or shall I carry you?"

"I can walk," he said, and did so, painfully and slowly, as Musleh helped him off the train. The people around him disappeared out of the station, but the black woman and the lion seemed to be waiting for them. For a minute, Bodo wondered if Musleh hadn't been kidding.

"Where are we going to put all these people?" Lupe Norbitt was asking Musleh, as she watched the stream of refugees exit the train.

"Be thankful that only the east corridor was affected, Dr. Norbitt," Musleh said. "You may still be wanting to prepare your lab for evacuation if the invaders advance further!"

"Evacuate my lab? Never," Lupe declared stubbornly. "Who is this?"

Musleh introduced Bodo to Dr. Norbitt. Bodo was stunned speechless again, for he had never known of any black doctors.

"And this is our man-eater," Musleh said, patting the big lion on the head.

Bodo stepped back a little from the lion.

"Don't let him frighten you," Dr. Norbitt declared, shooting a withering glance at Musleh. "He has been completely reprogrammed and has sworn off of homo sapiens until such a time as we need to feed someone to him," she told him with a smile.

"Perhaps he would like to eat the invaders," Musleh said with an evil twinkle in his eye.

"Pfagh!" Lupe snorted derisively. "And give him indigestion?"

"Have you heard from Mr. Billy?" Musleh asked.

Lupe shook her head, "No, not since last night. Do you have a place in mind for Mr. Dken?" she asked, noticing the boy was hanging back from the woman and her lion. "You can touch him if you want, Bodo," she said encouragingly. "Really, he doesn't think people are food any more."

Bodo answered slowly, "I've never even seen a real lion before." Cautiously he approached the big cat and placed a hand slowly on the thick mane. The lion barely moved, looking lazily about the now deserted train terminal.

"I was praying that you might have room in the lab," Musleh answered Dr. Norbitt. "It is the most secure part of the west corridor, and young Mr. Dken is needing rest still."

"Well, I think I can accommodate that," Lupe answered generously. "There's an extra cot in the back, it's not too comfortable, but it's safe and dry and I might even be able to rustle up some clothes."

Bodo was distracted with the lion, which was sniffing his hand, making great snorting noises. A pink tongue flicked slowly out, the raspy surface rough against his skin made Bodo laugh. "Does he have a name?" he asked the doctor.

"Yes," she answered, glad to see the boy getting along. "We call him Len, short for Leonard."

"Len?" Musleh asked with a smile. "Is not Leo the shortened name for Leonard?"

"Hush, now," Lupe scolded, "you'll only confuse him."

"Confuse who? The boy or the lion?"

"Leo is too cartoony," Lupe explained. "Besides, Len is a perfect name. I had an Uncle Len."

"I am still thinking that it is not a very ferocious name for a man-eater," Musleh goaded impishly.

"That's what you get for missing the naming ceremony," Lupe countered. "Now let's get back to the lab before we get run over by another train load."

**TKU - Over the Rift Valley**

They were flying swiftly over the southeastern portion of TKU when Sinclair called in to the Lab. He had flown close to the fighting, hoping to get a sense of where the troops were located, but a few pot shots from ancient rifles were close enough to make him back off and turn for home. He was eager to be back on familiar ground once again. He had changed from the uncomfortable suit and tie into his well-worn safari gear, and he flew his light jet on the familiar path with practiced ease, letting the autopilot do most of the work.

"Hey, Lupe," Billy asked when Doctor Norbitt answered his call. "We're coming in now, I'll meet you at the east landing pad. Tell the General we have company."

"Billy, the east corridor has been invaded," Lupe answered anxiously. "You'll have to use docking platform Chaucer Vector 1."

Billy made note of the code for the western terminal even as he said, "What do you mean invaded? That's impossible! We just flew over the Messenger's ground forces, they're still miles south of here!"

Musleh stuck his head into the vid screen, "It is sadly true," he told his friend. "We've evacuated the east corridor. Be careful, my friend, the enemy has proven to be remarkably resourceful."

"Christ almighty . . ." Sinclair thought for a moment. "All right then. Notify the General and Councilman Lee to meet us at CV1. Tell them that I've got Doom with me now."

"I will relay the message," Lupe said, "but the last I heard the General was topside with Colonel Moore and the fifth regiment." She paused quizzically, staring at the screen intently but looking past Billy. "Is that . . . Doom?" she asked.

Sinclair looked over his shoulder. Doom was studying vid maps and surveillance photos from their brief flyover at the navigator's chair to his right. He was probably just visible to Lupe on the vid screen. He should have heard the conversation, but Doom showed no interest in introducing himself, and was pointedly ignoring them. Billy shrugged and turned back to the screen. "Yeah," he answered. "He's not bringing any troops over, but he's going to lend us a hand . . . Dr. Norbitt? You okay?" Sinclair suddenly noticed that the woman had this glazed look in her eyes, an indescribable expression that he had never seen on the usually energetic chief of the genetics labs.

His answer to that question would have to wait, as without warning the little craft was bombarded from below!

"What the shock?" Sinclair wrestled with the controls, banking hard out of the way of a flak burst dangerously close to the cockpit window. The vid screen went blank as the autopilot immediately released control and warning lights flashed like crazy all over the control panels.

Doom was instantly in the co-pilot's seat. "Anti-aircraft fire from five o'clock," he announced. "Just below that ridge."

"This is crazy," Sinclair told him, "we're too far north for the Messengers to be firing on us! What the bloody hell is going on here?" Secretly he wondered if it could be friendly fire, and double checked his approach beacons.

"Those aren't Messengers," Doom replied dispassionately. "Fly, Mr. Sinclair, and leave the analysis for when we've reached safe air space. I'll take care of that gun." His voice was calm and confident, as if the bursting explosions were but a mere annoyance.

Sinclair watched out of the corner of his eye as Doom's hands hastened with precision over the controls of his craft. Sinclair was too busy to protest, as he set his flight path to evade the continued bombardment from below. Doom positioned the little jet's forward guns with the skill of a seasoned gunner, and ignited a barrage of super heated plasma over the landscape. The plane dove and twisted as Sinclair dodged the incoming flak with equal parts instinct and skill. There was a sudden explosion from the ground below as the ship's guns connected with something big and volatile, but not before one of the midair detonations still managed to catch the plane on the left side. Sinclair felt a cold rush of air and a sudden burning in his arm, and he realized he'd been hit. He cried out reflexively and released the controls as he clutched his left side.

Silently still, Doom reached over and took control of the plane, taking it into a deep dive to avoid further flak bursts. The ship was badly crippled, and losing hydraulics, but he still managed to keep her airborne and upright. Sinclair felt sick and dizzy, and there was a warm wetness that was soaking his left side. He was afraid to look, but touched a hand on his left side. It came away bloody.

"Doom . . ." he started weakly. "She's pulling left, adjust . . . horizon, ugh, port stabilizers . . ."

Doom glanced over at him, but there was no expression in that steel mask. They were losing altitude fast. Sinclair was beginning to black out, but he felt the docking jets of the plane kick in, and he hoped that they were not too badly damaged to land safely. She was a tricky craft to land, even without being damaged. Still, Doom somehow managed to handle her with uncanny expertise. The nose of the plane lifted in the air as they continued to float downward, and Sinclair felt the gentle bump as they touched ground.

"Well done," he commended quietly, and then blacked out.

When Sinclair came to a short time later, he realized that Doom had somehow managed to set the plane down right in the middle of the field headquarters of TKU's Fifth Regiment, not more than forty meters from the field hospital. His wounds had been dressed and bandaged, and from the dull throbbing he realized he'd been given some pain medication. There were a couple other wounded soldiers in the big tent, and he sat up in his cot to look around. The nurse was at the other end of the tent, conferring with the doctor. Doom was nowhere to be seen.

He swung his legs over the side of the cot, fighting back the wave of dizziness that overcame him. He forced himself to stand up. His left arm and rib cage were tightly bandaged, but he wasn't going to let that stop him now. He grabbed his coat and headed slowly out the flap of the tent. He should have just stayed in the medical tent, he knew, but something about giving Doom free reign inside his country didn't sit well with him. Not like he could actually change anything, still, he felt responsible, having brought him here.

The camp outside the med tent was a bustle of activity, with soldiers and hover craft scurrying through the tall grass in a manic state of orchestrated chaos. There were several tents set up on the low hillside, protected from detection by straw-colored tarps. The same had been done to his plane, which Billy saw had been moved under a clutch of acacia trees. Already there was a repair detail working on it, he could see the welding flash as they patched the ugly gash in the left side of the cockpit. In the distance, Sinclair could hear the steady "thoom thoom" of plasma fire. He looked up into the clear blue sky nervously, but the rain of death did not reach the camp. The sound was a brutal reminder on this pleasant day that they were still in the middle of a war zone.

Moving around helped clear his head a little and it wasn't long before he found the Commander's tent. It was a neatly camouflaged open-sided cloth shelter, nondescript except that it was packed with electronic monitoring and communications equipment. Inside the shelter, General Nyirenda and several officers were consulting a holographic field map. Doom stood over the group menacingly, his silver and blue armor and green cape conspicuously out of place among the subdued khaki uniforms of the TKU officers. Still, he seemed to effortlessly dominate the men whom Sinclair had always recognized as the most powerful men in his country.

There was barely enough room in the tent for all of the men and equipment, but Sinclair managed to squeeze through and get close enough to hear what was going on.

" . . . the rebels have infiltrated the eastern corridor, probably entering here at the supply docks for Cavalier Warren East," Colonel Moore was saying. "Their progress has been halted by the shield doors, but those will not hold forever."

"And now they've got access to the guns," Captain Skinner said angrily. "How could they have come so deep into our territory without us seeing them?"

"They out flanked you," Doom replied, his silver mask as cold as ice.

General Nyirenda shook his head. "The Messengers are not that sophisticated," he answered with a quiet sigh. "All of our experience has them barely armed and launching a very primitive attack." The General was a tall, hefty black man with short, dense white curls covering his head. He was a gentle man, a botanist by trade, and a keen student of human nature. Yet nothing in his broad range of experience and technical expertise had prepared him for the task before him now. "The Messengers have limited their attacks to frontal assaults, and continue to engage Company C at the border even now."

"These were not the Messengers," Doom said and pointed to the map. "The Messengers have been a diversion all along. Know thy enemy, gentlemen," he continued forcefully. "We are dealing with SACC special forces here."

"SACC?" Colonel Moore said incredulously. "But we've been in negotiations with them for days. They have no call to invade us now!"

"They lied, Colonel," Doom turned to face the Colonel, fire in his eyes. "They swept around your front line and found an all too convenient back door. Now they've captured your guns and use them against your own troops."

"He's right, General," Commander Gerard agreed. "The Messengers couldn't have launched such an attack. We have to disable those guns and cut off their supply route, and somehow flush them out of the warrens before they advance further into the complex."

"We are spread too thin," the General placed his hand thoughtfully on his chin. "If the SACC meant to have our troops dispersed across the countryside chasing ghosts, in that they have succeeded."

"Those cannons are cutting my men to pieces," Captain Skinner pointed out. "We can't get anywhere near the south tunnel."

"General?" one of the technicians from the row of monitor stations spoke up.

"What is it, Karl?" the General asked, approaching the table.

"We've got it sir," Karl replied eagerly, "successful triangulation of the foremost cannon array. Satcom verifies. I'm pulling it up on vid now."

"Prepare to target all lasers," Colonel Moore ordered another tech as he stepped in behind the General, then stopped dead in his tracks. "By the gods . . . !" he gasped as the picture before them cleared.

The General covered his eyes wearily and turned away from the screen. "Mother of God . . ." he sighed painfully.

Sinclair stepped closer and strained to see the screen. The remote cameras zeroed in on the image of the plasma cannon array that had been causing them so much grief over the last few hours. However it wasn't the cannons which shocked the TKU officers now, but what was around them. Hundreds of prisoners, some military, some obviously civilian, were tied and chained to the cannon support structures. Some were wounded, others might have been dead. Others still held their ears in painful contortions as the cannons boomed around them, spewing deadly liquid heat that simmered their skin. There were children screaming, their arms bound above their heads. Behind them, SACC troops operated the sophisticated weaponry with mechanical precision, contemptuously ignoring the prisoners gathered at their feet.

"Targeting computers locked on, Colonel," one of the weapon's techs announced. "Ready to fire at your command." She looked back nervously as Doom silently stepped in behind her chair.

"This is an outrage!" Colonel Moore blurted vehemently. "They can't do this! This goes against all the bylaws for the fair treatment of prisoners of war!"

"Contact Geneva," the General stated slowly. "And someone get Prime Minister Lange on the vid, asap!" he ordered. "I'm sure the Prime Minister would put a stop to this if he knew what was happening!"

Doom studied the readouts on the tech board and leaned discreetly over the laser fire control panel. Nonchalantly, he reached down and flipped up the covers that protected the firing pins.

"Sir?" the technician looked up at that steely mask, unsure of what she should do.

"Doom, no!" Sinclair was the first to notice Doom. His warning cry came too late, as Doom pressed the red button that brought the TKU's deadliest weapons to life. Hidden lasers rose out of the forest and beams of super-dense light waves rocketed silently through the air. On the screen where the enemy's plasma cannons had been there was a blinding flash as everything and everyone there was instantly obliterated under the merciless onslaught. The Generals and others gathered leaned back from the display, shielding their eyes from the barrage of light emanating from the monitors. When the light finally returned to normal, nothing remained there but black smoldering husks, and the distant booms in the distance were silent at last. As silent as the group of officers and soldiers in the open sided tent, who stared incredulously at the horrific carnage they had just witnesses, and then turned to the armored monarch in their midst.

Silent, except for Sinclair, who sputtered with cold contempt, "How could you? You just murdered those people! You're as much a barbarian as they were!"

Doom turned to look at him, and his eyes narrowed behind red lenses. "You know nothing of barbarism; much less of what Doom is capable of. Do not question me again, Sinclair, or you do so at your peril," he growled threateningly. Then added stoically, "They were already dead."

He turned to the officers and paced calmly before them, effortlessly commanding their utmost attention. "Gentlemen," he said officiously, "it is time to put aside all notions of fairness, mercy, and humanitarianism. Your enemy has shown his teeth, now you must do the same. You must bare your claws in the face of your enemy, and be prepared to use them! No longer will you be afforded the luxury of battle from the security of the boardroom. This is not a game anymore. Now there will be blood on your hands. Get used to it! Because if you do not, then the enemy will cut through you like a plague of locusts! They have shown their hand, the worst they could do was unimaginable to you. There will be more, and you will have to respond in kind, or be crushed. War is no place for weakness or indecision."

"Yes, do not be mistaken. This is War, gentlemen," he added, his words washing over them like a harsh winter rain. "There are no rules but one: only the strong will survive!"

**To Be Continued . . .**

"_**This place is so quiet, **_

_**Sensing that storm."**_

_**Red Rain, by Peter Gabriel.**_

DS

1/10/98

Next: WAR! And we finally find 'dem bones'! Barbecue anyone? And will we ever discover those secrets about Doom's mysterious past? Also, lions and tigers and bears! Oh MY! Don't miss "SINS OF THE FATHER, Part Two"!


	2. Chapter 2 The Hand that Feeds You

**Doom 2099 UG, Issue 12 (#48)**

_Gypsy, Sorcerer, Scientist, King . . ._ The man the 20th century vilified and called Doctor Doom has traveled to the year 2099 where the superheroes who once thwarted his plans at world conquest are no more. But his once pristine country of Latveria has been reduced to an inhospitable pool of toxic sludge by a madman wielding unearthly powers. He must renew his home and his power from abroad, in the new world of the future and in the realm of computer cyberspace, all the while asserting his right to rule as . . . DOOM 2099!

SINS OF THE FATHER, Part Two "The Hand That Feeds You."

**Tanzania-Kenya-Uganda Environmental and Conservation Cooperative (TKU)**

**Ground Assault Camp HQ**

"This is War, gentlemen," Doom glared at TKU's military officers through crimson lenses. "There are no rules but one: only the strong will survive!"

The officers looked to the General for confirmation, but Nyirenda was still shaking his head, in shock it seemed from the death of so many of his countrymen imprisoned by the SACC troops that had invaded their underground haven. Civilians and soldiers alike had been chained like animals to the sides of a half dozen devastating plasma cannons. They had been used as human shields by the SACC forces to prevent TKU ground troops from advancing on their position. But those evil intentions did not grant them immunity from Doom! The TKU's newest ally had surreptitiously fired their underground lasers upon the mobile cannon emplacements, indiscriminately incinerating the enemy's cannons along with their helpless prisoners [_See Last issue!_]. Now, they were truly at war with the SACC, and the General, whose title and position had been purely honorary up until this time, was being forced into making the life and death decisions that would ultimately affect his entire country.

The General looked back to the vid screen where the still smoking ruins of those now silent cannons were a grim reminder of his ultimate responsibility. He leaned heavily against the control board. "We cannot endure a lengthy campaign against the SACC," he admitted sullenly. "You have forced our hand before we had time to prepare. We have neither the troops nor the resources to engage the SACC in full scale battle!"

"Neither does the SACC, General," Doom stepped up to the control board. "Even now, increases in economic sanctions will compel the SACC to re-evaluate their efforts in continuing this conflict. The time for preparation is past, you are at war whether you recognize it or not. You must steel your commitment in the depths of your courage or risk being swept under with the rising tide. Our next step is to push the advantage. Captain Skinner, pull back your troops from the border. The Messengers are not our chief concern, let them advance into the countryside if need be, they will be easily expelled later."

The Captain looked to the General, who was still silent.

Doom continued. "Commander, the SACC troops have set up some kind of supply route, your job will be to find it and cut them off."

Commander Girard turned to the strategic map displayed on the central table in a 3D holographic image. "That's a lot of ground to cover," he pointed out. "They could be coming from the east and the sea, or north over the border. But we haven't had any intelligence confirming any kind of organized military forces in northern Mozambique, other than the Reserve Guard at the border."

Doom looked over the map with a practiced eye. "Show me again the surveillance video from this area here," he said, pointing to one of the border towns south of TKU. The tech sitting at the control station obliged, and a holographic image of a busy factory town floated in the air before them. There was a complex of tall factory buildings in a walled area towering above low squat houses and wide dirt streets. Trucks moved in and out of the factories, and smoke drifted lazily from rusty smokestacks. "Stop," Doom ordered. The image froze at his order. He pointed to a large building, similar in many ways to all of the others. "What is this building?" he asked no one in particular.

Colonel Moore answered, "That is factory 207, plastics and glass ware I believe," he answered.

"Hmm, I doubt that," Doom replied, eyeing the projection again. The hood of his green cloak cast his silver mask in shadow.

The Commander shook his head. "There is no reason to believe it is not," he commented.

"It is right there before you," Doom stated coldly. "As it has been all this time, if you'd only the eyes to see."

"I don't get it," Billy Sinclair stared up at the display, still cradling his wounded left arm. He had seen this scene a thousand times before. It seemed no different now than ever. "What do you see, Doom?"

"Unless the SACC has taken it upon themselves to control their environmental emissions voluntarily, after one hundred earth summits failed to force them to, yes, I would say that factory 207 is not what it appears to be on the city charters," Doom stated dryly.

Colonel Moore looked again, and was met with a sudden realization. "There's no smoke coming from the smokestacks!" he exclaimed.

Billy Sinclair looked closer, and sure enough, the Colonel was right.

"Focus your efforts on that building, Colonel," Doom ordered brusquely. "The amount of activity around this building suggest that it is serving as both housing and supply depots for the SACC organized forces. It is likely connected via underground facilities to some of the outlying buildings as well. Reestablish video links along the border to search for additional anomalies. There may be more than one. Isolate and destroy the buildings, and the infidels who have invaded your warrens will be trapped like vermin to be exterminated at our leisure!"

"Lord Doom," one of the communications technicians hurried up to the brightly armored man. "An urgent communiqué from Myridia for you."

Doom eyed the boy with suspicion, then said harshly, "Find me a private terminal, boy."

The young soldier blushed with fear, "Uh, there aren't any," he said, "except in the General's tent."

"Well, that will have to do," Doom responded, as if no one could possibly object. He turned sharply on his heel and exited the command center without further fanfare.

The soldier turned to look at General Nyirenda. The elder statesman met the boy's glance, then nodded. "It's all right, Private," he said, "show Doom to my tent and give him whatever he needs."

"Yes, sir!" The Private responded with a smart salute, and hurried out of the tent to catch up to Doom.

"Pardon my asking, but what the hell are you doing, General?" Sinclair sidled slowly up to the gray-haired black man and tried to catch his eyes. "You're letting Doom walk all over us!" he complained quietly, "He's supposed to be our ally, not our King! I for one have not sworn fealty to that arrogant s.o.b!"

"His experience and knowledge have already turned the tide in our favor," the General responded grudgingly. "None of us here have the kind of battle expertise he brings. Christ, he single-handedly overthrew the controlling corporations in Latveria, Myridia and the US. I'm a botanist, Bill, and a weekend soldier at best. Would you have me step on his toes, and drive him away, when the TKU is so desperate for his help?"

"But what of the cost? How many of our friends will be lost to his rash actions and his callous disregard for the lives of our people?" Sinclair protested.

Nyirenda shook his head, but still would not meet the other man's gaze. "How many more lives would have been lost, had the SACC been allowed to advance?" He turned away from Sinclair, and faced his command team. "Contact the council members," he ordered. "Now that we know who the true enemy is, we must plan our next move, before the SACC counterstrikes." He paused and added with a sigh, "But keep the lines open to any contact from Prime Minister Lange. If a truce can be reached, we will entertain it."

Sinclair watched as the General's orders were carried out, and secretly wondered if he had unknowingly brought a wolf into the lamb's fold.

Mr. Ryan from the Myridian foreign relations team was giving his report to Doom from the media center in Chenaya. His face appeared in a close-up on the vid monitor, and his eyes showed genuine concern behind thick round glasses. "The ads hit c-space no more than an hour ago, and already our receptionists have been swamped with calls. New orders have fallen almost 15 percent, and some of our more established clients are worried as well. The main stream media isn't treating it as anything more than slick propaganda, but they are downplaying the SACC's apartheid stance so that hasn't helped the public's perception any. Even one of our field offices in New York is being picketed by left-wing FTW * [*_Feed the World_] rock groupies. I don't think anyone is taking them seriously, but these things often start small."

Doom stood in the dark tent, arms crossed over his chest as he listened to the report. "Play the clip," he stated solemnly.

"Yes, Lord," Mr. Ryan answered obligingly.

Ryan's face was replaced on the screen by a panoramic view of a nameless, primitive village. There were some dismal huts on a dirt plain, and several tall black women holding emaciated babies, in conditions that could only be called horrific. A cluster of wretched children, their tummies bulging from famine and their eyes bright with fear stared up into the camera, flies buzzing unheeded around their faces. Over this picture of hopelessness and despair a narrator was railing viciously against the Myridian government for denying the poor South Africans with much needed food and medical supplies. The picture switched to an aerial view of the Myridian governmental palace, a beautiful modern building and a stark contrast to the huts shown in the arid African desert. Then back to the dead and dying alongside a filthy stream somewhere in Africa, and an inset picture of Doom. Doom's eyes narrowed angrily behind his mask, as he saw the grainy reproduction that showed him in one of his less than regal televised moments, holding up the corpse of Avataar as he cursed at the American public for their insolence. The unflattering moment was taken from his short-lived reign as President of the United States [_see Doom 2099 #31_], and he had been barely cognizant of the words he had spoken then as he struggled to control the hallucinogenic effect of the drugs that Avataar had infected him with.

The narrator continued, linking Doom with Myridia and placing the blame for Africa's plight squarely on his shoulders. "Myridian Data Storage and Management Companies profit from South Africa's misfortune! You can make a difference! Boycott Myridian products, and tell that evil despot Doom to go to Hel!"

"I've seen enough," Doom stated dispassionately. He leaned on the console and stared up at Ryan's face as the aide reappeared on the vid screen. "Where did this announcement originate?" he asked.

"As far as we can tell," Mr. Ryan answered, searching through his files, "it didn't come from the SACC directly. It first appeared in the States. Initial reports may link it to a Chicago-based company."

"Herod." Doom spoke the name with palpable vehemence.

"Sir?" Mr. Ryan asked quizzically.

Doom ignored his query. Herod, his old adversary was at it again, attempting to undermine his position on the world board. His blood began to boil, but the smear campaign was a tiny effort, and one that would likely not have any lasting impact on Myridian economic recovery. Still, it was a bad time. Of course, Herod knew that. Doom would have to devise some equal annoyance for Herod's future displeasure. He wasn't about to let even a minor slight go without repentance.

"Prepare a counter campaign." Doom ordered. "Have the PR staff get it on the net within the hour, Mr. Ryan. Divert the necessary funds, but don't Spielberg it. Nip it in the bud, and I will deal with Herod later." Doom terminated the transmission and the tent was cast once more in darkness. Only his red eyepieces glowed hauntingly in the shadows.

"You have picked the wrong time to push my buttons, John Herod," he said bitterly to himself. "You may not live long enough to regret that." The threat spoken, but not forgotten, Doom marched purposefully out of the General's tent.

Billy Sinclair had managed to commandeer a hover truck, and was ferrying Doom toward the kopje where the mysterious bone that had started this misadventure was originally found. He was secretly hoping that he could keep Doom away from the command center long enough for the officers to rethink their decision to let the armored despot have control over their war efforts. They had met while Doom took the call from Myridia, and over Sinclair's unheeded objections had unanimously appointed Doom as their chief military advisor. Doom had unceremoniously accepted the position, but Sinclair was convinced that Doom really wanted more from TKU than a seat on the cabinet. Perhaps more like the entire cabinet itself! Sinclair looked over at his passenger, who stood in the truck like Germany's General Rommel of World War II, surveying the plain ahead as if he owned it. "What have I gotten us into?" he thought bleakly, and not for the first time that day.

"You look as though you are enjoying the thought of war," Sinclair spoke plainly.

"War?" Doom said musingly. "War is not something to be enjoyed, but to be avoided. Your limited experience of this dismal century cannot begin to grasp the true meaning of the word. The vast campaigns, the horrific death toll, and the brutal skirmishes that comprised the great wars of the twentieth century have been lost to this generation, buried in the amusements of simulation games, to be philandered with like chess pieces, awash in artificial blood and fleeting glimpses of maimed bodies. True war is an ordeal of the spirit and the land unlike any other, one that tears at the soul as it rends the flesh and breeds destruction of everything in its path. There is no 'do over' in war. It is an atrocity which mankind must be made to remember, from time to time, so as to be appreciative of the serenity and prosperity that peace brings."

"You speak of war like someone who's familiar with it," Sinclair commented. He wondered silently if Doom had a speech writer whispering in his ear under that inscrutable mask. It surely didn't take much prodding for the monarch to engage in passionate soliloquy.

"I have lived with the specter of war since my birth," Doom admitted candidly. "As a king, it has been my foremost goal to keep the threat of war forever at bay. That is not always possible, in the face of an implacable aggressor."

Sinclair recalled the necrotoxification of Doom's native Latveria, and was respectfully silent.

"This, however," Doom continued without pause, "this is not an honorable contest where men of valor test their mettle on the field of battle. I would rather let loose the dogs of war and challenge our opponent in a decisive confrontation, than suffer the insidious lurking of vermin that strike and retreat! Instead we are tormented by vile jackals, nipping at the heels of progress as if a single bite would curb their ravenous appetite to destroy all that is unsullied and virtuous left in the world. They are the breeders of chaos! They eat away at your borders, worrying the beast in the darkness until it either falls, or strikes back with righteous fury! Striking with horn and cloven hoof to push the jackals once more back into their earthen dens, bloodied by their defeat but beaten only until the disreputable mongrels forget their terrible wounds, and driven by their hunger venture forth to torment the noble beast once more."

Sinclair half listened to Doom's speech as he drove across the wide plain, but something in the grass ahead made him slow the vehicle cautiously. A half dozen vultures were circling the sky above them, and he was beginning to see the object of their interest. Objects, he thought grimly, as his heart leapt into his throat with choking grief, and anger. "You might want to modify your metaphor, Doom," he said sullenly. "Even jackals aren't this bloodthirsty."

Sinclair halted the vehicle and grabbed his gun. He jumped down onto the ground, and noted with disdain that even the grasses were soaked with blood. Doom followed him silently, until they stood together on the dark plain, in the middle of a massive and senseless slaughter.

Surrounding the two men on all sides were the bodies of thousands of dead animals, their corpses still warm, blood flowing freely from horrible wounds. This was the great herd, the migratory beasts that had crossed this country since time immortal. Sinclair recognized wildebeest, zebra, gazelle and buffalo among the dead. These animals had not been hunted by men with guns in more than fifty years, and here they had been slaughtered merely for sport.

Sinclair walked through the fallen animals, piecing together what had happened with an expert's eye. The herd had been grazing, marching slowly up the wide valley as they did each and every year at this time. The bucks were on the lookout, standing separate from the does as their sharp eyes and ears and noses scanned the open grasslands for familiar predators. Perhaps they smelled the presence of man. Too far away to cause them alarm, they would have ignored that foreign scent. The first animal to fall only spooked those standing near it, frightened by the sudden smell of blood, but unaccustomed to death that strikes from afar. There were no rushing lions, no hyenas worrying their calves. The animals were loathe to flee, the grass was good here, and water was nearby. More of their brethren fell, some moaning from terrible wounds that spurted blood, others killed instantly and falling onto the grass with a lifeless thud. Ears and noses now were twitching, the first hint of panic spreading among the herd. Small explosions in the ground at their feet caused them to jump and clump closer together in a reflexive herding instinct. They milled together nervously, too frightened now to graze, on the verge of a stampede, but uncertain as to the direction their flight should take. Some of them dropped dead in the middle of the herd, others suddenly struggled to stand, writhing on the ground, crying and bellowing as shattered legs buckled beneath them. Now the herd gathered a singular momentum and charged blindly across the grass. Still the silent death followed them, killing them in mid-stride until confused, the herd turned and changed direction, fleeing from what they knew not. Three times the herd set off in one direction, only to stop and stand in confusion before setting off in a new direction, as more of their members fell dead in a cascade of blood and churning dirt. Finally the surviving animals had escaped, fleeing headlong into the forest where the bullets would not find them, leaving the dead and dying to litter the grassy plain.

Sinclair clenched his jaw as he bent down to examine a large Sable antelope. Round black eyes stared lifelessly into the clear blue sky. Its long graceful antlers rose out of its skull in a spiral of sharp black bone. Nothing in this animal's life could have prepared it for this ignoble death. "God in heaven," Sinclair muttered, "what a bloody shocking waste." He could think of nothing more acrimonious to say, appalled by the scene before him.

"This species," Doom said slowly, a sad curiosity in his metallic voice, "the Sable Antelope, was nearly extinct in my time. A hundred years ago, all that was left was a single pair of animals in a zoo in Johannesburg."

Billy remained crouched by the fallen antelope. "A lot can happen in a hundred years," he answered evasively. "The TKU's mission was to breed the endangered and dying animals of Africa, and to provide them a safe refuge. The Sable Antelope is one of many species that were recovered in this way."

"I am fully cognizant of your mission," Doom stated churlishly. "I also recall basic genetic biology. Two individuals of a species cannot make a viable population, contrary to the belief in the Old Testament's tale of Noah and the Ark. Additionally, my recollection of the last pair of Sable Antelope is that they were both male, hardly the building blocks for a successful breeding program."

Billy stood up and faced the taller man confidently. "Let's just say that our scientists were very clever in how they manipulated those building blocks," he answered.

Doom's response, if any, was drowned by the sudden sharp singing shriek of superheated plasma fire. Billy instinctively hit the deck, intuitively focusing in on the direction of the attack, as he tried to forget the pain in his wounded left side. Doom, amazingly enough, simply stepped out of the way of the red golden beam as if he knew exactly where it was aimed. Yet despite his timely avoidance, the destructive energy did not miss all of its intended targets. Instead of flesh, it slammed forcefully into the hover truck parked a few meters away. The old truck exploded dramatically in a huge arc of blue flame, sending chunks of burning metal skyward like a hyperactive fireworks display. Billy covered his head as tiny flaming bits rained down from above. When the initial blast had cleared, he raised his head, trying to get a fix on the location of the enemy while prudently keeping his head down.

He needn't have worried. Despite their exposed position out on the open plain, Doom stood fearlessly exposed, resplendent in his silver and blue armor. His green cloak fanned majestically in the breeze behind him, billowing out around him as if to say, "Here's your target, take your best shot!" Yet Doom made no move to seek cover, and his bold ploy seemed to be working. Sinclair knew that it would take the SACC a few minutes to recharge that plasma gun (assuming of course that they only had the one), and in the meantime the soldiers were too tempted by that six and a half foot target to wait. They began taking pot shots at Doom, and in so doing, quickly revealed their hidden position.

"Scurrilous dogs!" Doom shouted, as his computerized targeting systems quickly zeroed in on their location. Their simple lasers and armor piercing rounds bounced harmlessly off of his adamantium lanxide alloy armor, but they would not fare so well under his own assault. From his silver gauntlets, he began a barrage of blue energy beams that saturated the enemy's position. The plasma gun fired again, and he barely stepped out of its way in time, the edges of his cloak singed by the liquid heat. Yet his violent retaliation barely slowed, and the firepower from both sides increased as Doom marched confidently toward the enemy's hiding place.

"Shocking bloody suicidal maniac!" Sinclair muttered as he crouched behind a dead buffalo and took careful aim on the enemy in the distance. He adjusted slightly for his wounded left arm, juggling the old rifle awkwardly at first. The soldiers were hiding behind a small hill some 300 meters distant and so intent were they now in firing upon Doom that Sinclair easily targeted them up in his telescopic sight. He lined up the crosshairs and fired without hesitation, his anger at the slaughter of the animals still fresh in his heart. Only when Doom marched into his line of sight did he think of abandoning his bloated bunker and chase after the determined Latverian.

Whatever weapons the SACC troops were throwing at the armored monarch were in vain. Close enough now to target individuals, Doom picked off the soldiers with unerring accuracy, blowing holes in their chests the size of watermelons, and severing limbs and heads with equal brutality. He was surrounded in a halo of laser fire that only served to heighten his already formidable appearance. The plasma gun fired once more, and this time, having sufficiently analyzed its light frequency, Doom adjusted his personal shields and simply deflected that deadly fire. His next salvo melted the huge gun, and incinerated the two men who were operating it.

Sinclair hurried to catch up to Doom, crouching low and stopping every few steps to pick off a few more of the enemy troops with his old but effectively deadly hunting rifle. The barrel of his gun smoked as each brass casing was ejected from the chamber, cascading toward the ground like a golden waterfall. The seemingly impervious Doom continued to stride purposefully up the hill ahead of him, firing mercilessly upon any SACC soldier who dared raise his head above the grasses. The return fire grew increasingly more sporadic, until by the time Sinclair crested the hill several meters behind Doom, the plain had once again grown as silent as the death which it now bathed in anew.

Sinclair crouched at the top of the hill and surveyed the carnage with his gun at the ready. Before him were the dead and dying remains of a platoon of SACC troops. There were at least forty dead by his estimation, and two plasma gun installations lay smoking on the burnt grass. Doom stood dispassionately at the center of it all.

"Fools," Doom stated coldly. Then he turned to his TKU guide. "Tell me, what do you see, Mr. Sinclair?" Doom asked calmly, as if quizzing him on the world capitals.

"A bloody awful mess and I am shocking crazy if I truck with you any longer!" Sinclair yelled at him angrily. "Some of us aren't armor plated you know! I could have been killed back there!"

"Appropriate reparations would have been made, had you suffered injury," Doom answered unemotionally. He asked again, "What do you see? Gather intelligence every chance you get. When there are no prisoners to question then learn from the dead."

Sinclair shouldered his weapon and looked at the bodies around him. "Well," he started with a sigh, "these are definitely SACC troops by the uniform. And they're the regular troops, not the reserves," he added, scratching his chin. "They're all white, so that means that the Messengers aren't part of this group, just as you suspected."

"Obviously. What else?"

"Shock, I don't know . . . wait," Sinclair scanned the horizon. "What in the shock were they doing here?" There was nothing out here on this open plain, not a building or an outcropping of rock nor a stream of water to define the plain with the exception of the small hill they had used for cover. It was as insignificant a location as anyplace he could think of. If they hadn't stopped the hover truck, he would have flown right past them without ever knowing they were there. But it wasn't a regularly traveled route, so it was hardly an ideal spot for any kind of ambush.

"Exactly," Doom answered. "There has to be an access to the underground from here."

"Out here?" Sinclair scoffed. "I don't think so!" The underground cities were where the majority of the human population of the TKU lived and worked, so that the land above could remain unspoiled for nature and wildlife. Sinclair knew both the above and below ground worlds, it was why he was such a respected guide here.

"You know the warrens well?"

"Passably well," Sinclair offered immediately. "This is far too southwest for any of the outlying tunnels of Cavalier Warren. Maybe, two miles to the east of here we'd find the closest warrens, beginning with Dr. Norbitt's lab and the rest of the genetics triangle."

"Perhaps, but these soldiers were not defending this position for the grass," Doom countered. "There must be a tunnel opening here! Find it!" he ordered.

Sinclair didn't like being ordered, but Doom had a point. He examined the markings on the earth between and around the fallen bodies. An expert tracker, he put together their patterns, new and old, until he defined a kind of path in the soft earth. He stooped down, lifting one corpse half off of the ground, then repositioned himself to move the body further out of the way. There was something there! He pushed away some of the dirt with his hand, and came across a metal latch!

"Hey! Over here!" he yelled out to Doom. A shadow fell over him, and he knew that the Latverian was behind him. Without looking back he felt around in the dirt until he was certain of the hatch's dimensions, and finding a looped metal handle, he pulled with all his strength until the round hatch began to lift up from the ground. "Careful," he said, "there might be more of them down there . . . Whoa!" Billy fell backwards from the opening as bright yellow bursts of laser fire came shooting out of the hole. "Bloody hell!" he shouted, scurrying away from the round tunnel that plummeted far into the depths below the earth. The lasers stopped for a moment, but as soon as he edged his head over the opening, they started up again. "Now what?" he asked.

Doom stood beside the opening, silently judging. "How deep are the tunnels?" he asked.

"Thirty-three meters," Sinclair replied. "Usually. Don't know about out here, though. Like I said, there aren't supposed to be any tunnels out this far. What are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to find a back door," Doom replied coolly.

"A . . . backdoor?" Sinclair looked at him quizzically. "And what am I supposed to do?"

"Pray that it really is thirty-three meters," Doom answered, and Billy looked on in astonishment as Doom slowly slipped beneath the grass, and floated into the earth like some ungodly specter. Suddenly he was gone. There was silence. A shadow passed again over Sinclair, this time from a lone cloud scuttling across the blue sky. He watched as the shadow traced the frayed landscape and then disappeared, much like Doom had done. The sound of laser fire and men screaming wafted up from the portal beside him, drawing his attention back to the deep hole.

Sinclair looked cautiously over the edge. More laser fire, then silence. He could see nothing in the pitch darkness below him, until Doom ignited some lighting mechanism, and that unmistakable mask appeared. He gestured, and Sinclair shouldered his gun and slipped carefully into the manhole, to make the rather mundane trip down the ladder.

**TKU Genetics Lab**

**Cavalier Warren West**

"Did you hear something?" Musleh started up from his cot in the corner of the lab. He grabbed a weapon, and stood, looking toward the rear tunnels.

"There's nothing back there but rats," Lupe muttered, not looking up from her computer console. She looked worn and haggard, like she hadn't slept in a day. She was working on a tiny electronic mechanism that she attached to the forehead of the big lion. The lion's newest best friend, Bodo, the wounded boy from Mozambique, looked up from where he lay sleepily against the lion's side.

"What is that?" Bodo asked the Doctor curiously. He lazily scratched the bandage that covered the scar over his heart.

"It's nothing," Lupe stated distractedly. "Part of Len's treatment," she added hastily, "so that when he returns to the wild he won't eat people anymore."

"Oh," Bodo answered. He patted the lion's thick mane, but the sleepy cat just snorted a little at the intrusion, and his big head rested easily on his giant paws. "Len doesn't like to eat people, he likes chicken." The boy said with a broad white smile.

"Where's my pen?" Lupe asked with annoyance.

Musleh walked toward the tunnel entrance to the lab. "I am certain that I heard something," he stated. He readied his weapon, opening the door to the lab as he cautiously scanned the vacant tunnels beyond, all senses alert. At the sound of a distant hatch being opened he instinctively brought the gun to his shoulder, his finger tensing on the trigger.

The tousled brown hair that appeared in the open hatchway was instantly familiar, and Musleh dropped his aim with visible relief as the face of his friend Billy Sinclair came into view.

"Don't shoot! It's me!" Sinclair shouted as he pushed his way through. But the warning was not necessary, for Musleh had already lowered his gun. The old hatch in the tunnel wall was stiff, not having been used in years, and it would not open all the way, but Sinclair managed to squeeze through. He hurried forward to greet his friend.

"Is everyone ok?" Sinclair asked. "Any more word from the rest of Cavalier East?"

"It is good to see you, Mr. Billy. We are doing fine," Musleh answered, "the shield doors appear to be holding back the invaders. The warrens to the east have been compromised, my friend, there has been no word from there in hours. Welcome home, such that it is."

"Thanks Musleh."

"How did you get through? We had thought the tunnels to the west were impassable?"

"Not so," Sinclair answered. "The SACC troops apparently found a way in. There are tunnels back there that I had no idea even existed, but the SACC has apparently been using some sort of high powered satellite infrared imaging to map out the tunnels. Look at this," he showed Musleh a palm-sized computer with a flip up display as they entered the lab. On it was a maze of lines and colors that showed tunnels and aboveground openings for miles beneath the African plains. "I took this off of one of the dead soldiers. I wouldn't have been able to find my way back here without it! They've used these displays to coordinate their attack, and it looks like they've got us boxed in!" Lupe had joined the men and she was watching over their shoulders as Billy thumbed through the display pages on the mapping device.

"It is amazing that you were able to get through, Billy," Musleh said in genuine wonder.

"I had help," Sinclair admitted, gesturing with a thumb back at the hatch through which he'd entered. "Doom is still back there, setting up a cave-in to keep the enemy at bay from that direction. We were lucky," he added, "another hour and they would have invaded the labs through that hatch!"

"Doom . . . Is he here?" Lupe asked, her eyes scanning the space behind Sinclair. There was a pinch of fear in her voice that had not been there a moment ago.

"In a minute," Sinclair answered, then, sensing something was wrong with the woman, he asked, "Is everything all right, Dr. Norbitt?" His brow was creased in puzzlement. She seemed disheveled, perhaps distraught, and uncharacteristically disorganized.

"Fine," she answered unconvincingly, turning away to grab a small control device from her desk as she continued to eye the door suspiciously.

There was a muffled boom behind them that made them all jump. Sinclair and Musleh instinctively leveled guns at the door. But when Sinclair reached to cautiously open the lab door, the Latverian monarch strode purposefully through. Behind him, the recalcitrant hatchway to the distant tunnels had been blown off of its hinges.

Doom assessed the lab in one quick glance, then motioned back to the tunnels with a nonchalant wave of his armored hand. "There will be no need to be concerned with attack from that direction," he announced arrogantly.

Just as Sinclair and Musleh lowered their guns however, something unexpected happened. The next few moments seemed to move in slow motion, catching the three men standing at the doorway completely unaware. From where it had been peacefully resting, the big lion suddenly rose up, and with practiced precision and steely strength it gathered its limbs beneath it and leaped directly at Doom! There was a curious fire in those brown eyes, and deadly intent in long white fangs and extended claws. Sinclair had seen this scene once before, when he had captured the big lion just before almost becoming its lunch (_back in Doom 2099 UG Issue #44!_) He was well aware of the lion's objective. But this time there wasn't enough time to bring his gun to bear. Both he and Musleh instinctively fell back from that tawny, toothy missile, shoved against the wall in the tight quarters of the lab. Doom stepped back only slightly, and raised his arms to brace against the impact. The big lion slammed into the armored man like a freight train, but somehow Doom remained standing. When Sinclair looked up from where he had fallen, it was to see the lion trying to bite through Doom's head, just as Doom was pushing it away. The Latverian had one hand on the beast's throat, and another on its paw, while the animal bore down with all its strength and weight, bringing clawed feet up to rake the body of its intended prey. For a moment the two combatants were suspended like that, like a frieze from a medieval escutcheon, neither willing to back down. Then Doom pushed off with an audible grunt, and the big cat went flying backward to the other side of the lab where it crashed into some tables and scientific equipment.

Sinclair was instantly scrambling to his feet, bringing his gun to his shoulder and positioning himself between Doom and the lion. "What the bloody hell is going on here?" he screamed as he sighted on the lion. There were no stun charges in his gun this time. If he fired, it would mean death for the magnificent animal.

"What manner of insult is this?" Doom bellowed angrily. "Stand back, Sinclair, while I deal with this beast myself!"

Sinclair saw the charge on Doom's gauntlets out of the corner of his eye, but he neither moved out of the way nor lowered his weapon.

"Nooo!" Bodo cried from the back of the room as he leaped toward the lion and directly in the line of fire. The lion was shaking itself free of the jumble of equipment it had smashed into and its growl filled the lab with a low angry rumble. Its eyes fixed once more on Doom.

"Lupe! What's happening?" Sinclair yelled over at Dr. Norbitt. "Control the animal before it or someone else gets hurt!"

Dr. Norbitt appeared behind her workbench, a look of hurt and confusion on her face. The lion roared, and Bodo screamed again as the big cat effortlessly pushed the black boy that stood in his way to the ground with one paw. Both Doom and Sinclair readied their weapons. Then, as suddenly as the attack had begun, it was over. The lion shook its big shaggy head and its body and features suddenly relaxed. Then it turned around, and walked obediently into its cage, immediately lying down and closing its eyes as if nothing had happened. Musleh leaped forward to close and lock the cage door.

"That was a most unusual behavior," Musleh said with characteristic understatement.

"Lupe? What's going on?" Sinclair asked.

The black woman set down the controller she had used to make the lion attack. Her eyes filled with unbidden tears that she struggled to contain. Her face screwed up in internal agony as she faced her friends. "Him!" she struggled with the words. She looked at Doom from across her lab bench, hatred in her eyes. "He's the one . . . he's the one who murdered my father! Right here, in this lab! I was there! I saw it all!" She threw the controller at Doom. The mechanism shattered against the wall beside him. Doom did not even flinch. His silver mask was cold and silently expressionless.

"I assure you Dr. Norbitt that whoever who killed your father, it was not Doom," Doom replied with calm disdain. "I have never before been in this lab."

"Oh, it was you all right!" Lupe protested. "Your armor was different, the cloak was red, not green, but I remember you well enough! You didn't know I was here, but I was hiding. Fourteen years ago, you walked in here just like that and broke my father's back! He didn't die right away, that took three more years. But you just might as well have killed him out right! I swore if I ever saw you again, I would make you pay! But . . . I . . . I failed . . ." The tears came now as deep sobs of sorrow and frustration forced her to turn away. Musleh stepped up to comfort the doctor.

"Is it true?" Sinclair asked. "Is what she said true? Were you here before?"

"Perhaps there is the morsel of truth in her tale," Doom replied. "It could be that the mysterious bone you uncovered has its part in that truth."

"Have you or have you not been here before?" Sinclair demanded. "I want the truth!"

"Watch your tone, Mr. Sinclair," Doom answered angrily. "I have endured great indignity upon my person this day, and my patience is wearing thin! No, I have never met the late Dr. Norbitt nor have I before this day had the somewhat dubious pleasure of his daughter's acquaintance. My memories of the past are not entirely clear, but of this I am certain. As for the other, it would be a lie if I said I had never been here before."

"But you just said you'd never been in the lab!"

"That is true. The warrens have changed considerably in the last seventy years."

"Seventy . . . ? What do you mean?"

"Tell me, Mr. Sinclair, do the history records identify who the "Founders" of the TKU were?"

"Well, no, not really. Just a consortium of scientists is all that I know about."

"And the funding?"

Sinclair looked at Doom with a perplexed expression on his face. "An anonymous benefactor, interested in the well being of the wildlife and the genetics research provided the bulk of the initial funding. That's well known, but the identity of that person or persons has never been revealed."

"Ah, how quickly they forget," Doom mused quietly. He walked over to a computer station on the wall, and began accessing some of the files.

"What the shock are you doing now?" Sinclair answered.

"Patience, Mr. Sinclair," Doom stated with calm indifference. "All of your question will be answered in a moment. I myself wasn't completely sure until I saw the tunnel diagrams so conveniently supplied by your enemies. Then, it was clear to me that there was only one genius who could create such a perfect underground milieu. I had always expected that this facility would be of use in the future." The computer monitor booted up to the program he was searching for, and he brought it carefully online. "Good evening, PAD," he spoke to the computer.

The computer processed the voice instantaneously, and answered, "Good evening, Doctor Doom. How may I assist you?"

"Defensive capabilities are currently at 68.4%. Initiate self-diagnostic program ZYGOTE-1 and began repair protocols."

"Yes, Master. Working. There are a number of intruders in the warrens and outer tunnels. How do you wish to proceed?" The computer's voice was hushed and pleasant. On a monitor, it displayed areas that had been compromised.

"How long before repair protocols bring the station back to full capacity?"

"Estimate full capacity in 153 minutes."

"153 minutes? That's all?" Sinclair was stunned. "Some of those systems have been down for seven years!"

"PAD is fully capable of all essential repairs, given the appropriate input," Doom answered, then addressed the computer again. "Proceed with repairs; we will address the intruders when systems are fully operational." He reached over and turned off the intercom.

"How do you know all this?" Sinclair asked incredulously.

"That should be obvious by now," Doom answered as he slowly walked away. He turned around to address Sinclair over his shoulder. "I built it."

**To Be Continued . . .**

"_**. . . steel my soldiers' hearts;**_

_**Possess them not with fear; **_

_**take from them now **_

_**The sense of reckoning, **_

_**if the opposed numbers **_

_**Pluck their hearts from them."**_

_**- Henry V by Wm. Shakespeare**_

DS

5/11/98

Next: Is Doom telling the truth? And what would the Doctor Doom of our time want with a really big zoo anyway? Who was the guy in the red cape that killed Dr. Norbitt's father? And if Doom owns the TKU, will he ask for past due rent payments? Will we ever find those bones? The stage is set, true believers, for revelations galore! Don't miss "SINS OF THE FATHER, Part Three"!


	3. Chapter 3 The Lion's Share

**Doom 2099 UG Issue 13 (#49)**

_Gypsy, Sorcerer, Scientist, King . . ._ The man the 20th century vilified and called Doctor Doom has traveled to the year 2099 where the superheroes who had thwarted his plans at world conquest are no more. But his once pristine country of Latveria has been reduced to an inhospitable pool of toxic sludge by a madman wielding unearthly powers. He must renew his home and his power from abroad, in the new world of the future and in the realm of computer cyberspace, all the while asserting his right to rule as . . . DOOM 2099!

SINS OF THE FATHER, Part Three "The Lion's Share"

The night fell like thunder over the African plains, as a spiral of clouds natural and unnatural descended upon hillsides strewn with the blood-soaked carcasses of man and beast. Black billows of smoke breathed their dying fires into the darkening skies, hiding broken husks of burnt metal cannons and shattered dreams of peace. Shadowy figures huddled beneath the leaden skies as the fury of the heavens boomed fearfully from above, but the threat of rain was still many miles away. Furtive shadows moved like vultures in the night, black creatures racing across the grasses, beams of liquid death spewing forth from guns that roared with a deafening symphony of devastation. Children, driven from their homes, gathered in flimsy tent shelters that flapped noisily in the wind while soldiers marched past with faces grimy and grim. Eerie yellow eyes, inhuman, and as old as time, stared out of the murky gloom and licked bright white fangs not yet satiated by the feast, still hungry for fresh meat. And the dry thunder rolled across the plains, as oblivious to the struggles of the creatures below as the thunder had ever been, for uncounted millennia.

On a high rock outcropping far from the fighting, one man stood alone, a dark silhouette against the miasma of clouds that painted the night sky. One man defiant, here at the nexus of the dawn of man. One man unrivaled, who felt the thunder wash over him but feared it not. One man, who would dare to tame the thunder! Doom!

His cape whipped around him in the wind as he stood atop the rocky kopje where days ago Billy Sinclair had found what would be a most prophetic human bone. The red lenses of his silver mask glowed luminously in the growing darkness, as flashes of lightning reflected eerily off of his polished armor. In the distance, the sounds of battle echoed the booming thunder, and his fist clenched reflexively. Small trees bent helplessly in the stiff wind, but Doom stood erect upon the jumbled boulders. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the hillside with the infrared sensors built into his mask. Even as he silently searched, he felt his heart flutter, as it had when he first saw this place, moments earlier. The sense of recognition he had felt then was growing ever stronger. The answers were in the bones that still lay hidden somewhere on this isolated outcropping in the middle of a grassy African plain.

"Couldn't this wait until morning?" Billy asked pleadingly, as he held his hat and braced against the gusting wind, struggling to maintain his balance on the rocky hillside. "I don't see how we're going to find anything in this bloody storm!"

"No," Doom answered simply without looking at his reluctant guide. Still scanning the hillside, Doom turned away from the man and stepped lightly down some large jagged boulders. The darkness of the moonless night didn't seem to impair his ability to navigate the rough terrain, and his movements were sure and precise. Sinclair scrambled down behind him, his mind still full of the events of the past few hours.

**Earlier. **

"What do you mean, you built it?" Sinclair asked incredulously. "That's impossible! The warrens were originally constructed more than 70 years ago!"

"Don't believe him," Dr. Norbitt whispered hatefully from behind her work bench. She eyed the armored monarch with undisguised mistrust. "He's lying! He's an evil, back stabbing murderer!"

Doom appeared not to have heard her. "Naturally there have been additions and modifications over the last half century," he continued, "I had not intended this facility to be stagnant. It was one of many ventures I conceived shortly before the great wars and the genetic purification which decimated half of the civilized world. There were things of importance that I alone recognized were worth saving, despite the objections of those so-called 'scientific intellectuals' who let their research be led by their fears or worse, their pocketbooks. Cloning was all but forgotten by modern man, but here, only HERE, it flourished! And reached its grandest conclusion, producing a viable species from the smallest bit of genetic material, a species capable of sustaining natural reproduction and flourishing once more in its natural environment! Adapting as nature intended, with the appropriate guidance. Only I had the insight and foresight to give the theoretical science this tangible vitality!"

"If you were so proud of it, how is it that we escaped your notice all these years?" Sinclair asked suspiciously.

Doom turned away from the computer panel and looked at him. "There were literally hundreds of projects that I had teams working on at the dawn of the twenty-first century," he answered calmly. "With all the years and the social upheaval that have passed since then, it is a testament to my planning and vision that any of them have survived at all. They were naturally designed to operate without my direct guidance, so that my work would continue should any . . . unforeseen event, take me away. Now that Doom has returned, I suspect that more of my projects will begin to resurface." He did not mention the annoying memory loss that still plagued him. It would be unseemly for his subordinates to recognize any sign of weakness in their Master. He turned back to the computer panel, and began accessing the databanks.

"After he is through praising himself," Musleh whispered to his friends, "perhaps he can spare a moment to rescue our friends who are now fighting to save his experiment."

Dr. Norbitt shot him a withering glance. "You don't actually believe that drivel about creating the TKU?"

Musleh shrugged. "Why not?" he said. "What does it matter to me who created it? As long as it is still here tomorrow!"

"It matters to me!" she hissed back at him. "It is my life, shock it! And he murdered my father!"

"Dr. Norbitt," Sinclair started gently, "Lupe . . . He just might be telling the truth. There was never any record of the benefactor who set up the warrens, and the computer did recognize him, after all."

"He could have reprogrammed the recognition protocols when he was alone in the tunnels! The system is networked throughout the warrens, all he would have to do is open a mainline from one of the feed panels," Lupe shot back in a coarse whisper. "Or my father could have given him access before he died! That only proves he was here before! He lies to win your trust, but he cannot be trusted!"

"It isn't your trust I require, Dr. Norbitt," Doom intoned deeply from where he stood a few meters away, still seemingly intently engaged at the computer terminal. The trio of friends turned to him with surprise, unaware that he had been listening to their whispered conversation. He turned to look at them over his shoulder, and his eyes gleamed with hidden menace. "Only your obedience!"

**The South African Corporate Coalition (SACC)**

**Governor's Palace, Johannesburg, S. Africa**

The Governor of Domestic Relations, Mr. Gustav Hauptmann, was addressing an informal table of SACC military and political leaders when the messenger rushed into the conference room.

"The blacks in Division 6 are gaining too much freedom from the steady border conflict," Hauptmann was saying, "there aren't enough men to keep them in line and production levels in the factories are at the lowest they've been in decades . . ."

The boy stood quietly at the door, his face ashen as he held a single note in his shaking hand. He looked from Gov. Hauptmann, who was standing, to the Prime Minister, seated in a wide chair, uncertain as to whom he should address first. His well-pressed uniform showed his nervous breath as he stood smartly at attention just inside the door.

"Well? Speak up, boy!" Hauptmann growled.

"Private message for the Prime Minister, your lordship," the messenger answered quickly.

"Bring it here," the Prime Minister answered, holding out his hand.

The messenger instantly obeyed and handed over the note in the now silent room. Quickly he left, closing the door behind him.

The Prime Minister donned his glasses to read the message, and a grimace crossed his face. "Blast," he said loudly. He looked up from the message, quickly folding it and placing it in his coat pocket. The others looked at him expectantly, and he obliged their curiosity. "Our worst fears are confirmed, gentleman," he stated solemnly. "This was intelligence from our field operatives inside the TKU. They confirm that Doom has assumed control of the TKU military operations, and will be backing their efforts with support from Myridia. It is safe to assume that the SACC will be his next target of acquisition."

There was a murmur of surprise around the room. "Our reports from Myridia would not support that information, sir," Mr. Walden Wise, the Governor of International Commerce protested. "Their domestic situation is still too unstable following the cyberspace attack they endured only a few weeks ago. They have been negotiating in good faith to ease economic sanctions against the SACC, and I foresee progress in that arena."

"Typical smokescreen," the Governor of Defense offered disdainfully. "With Doom leading TKU, our only hope is to take a stronger offensive."

"I agree, David" the Prime Minister said, and he stood up. "It is time that we end the TKU's selfish domination of African lands. They have wasted precious resources that could be put to better profit than a wildlife preserve. We must end this conflict now, and we must do so decisively. It is time to order an air strike against the TKU fortifications."

"I must protest, Prime Minister!" Governor Wise objected. "Our resources are already stretched to the limit in this conflict. We risk losing all control over the Mozambique border, not to mention the lost productivity and the increasing independence of the Division 6 blacks!"

"I disagree, Mr. Wise," the Defense Governor spoke again. "A quick, decisive air strike will break their resolve and force Doom to retreat. We've already got them on the ropes, perhaps we can hit that Latverian while we're at it!"

"We cannot sustain a lengthy attack of this nature," Governor Altimus from the New Technologies Division interjected. "We don't know if their perimeter defenses are still down. But if we take out their command post from within we will have a better chance of a successful attack."

"Agreed, we will set it into motion ASAP," the Prime Minister ordered decisively.

"But, sir!" Mr. Wise tried again.

"This meeting is adjourned gentlemen," the Prime Minister finished, standing as the others made their leave. "David, will you stay a moment?"

"Of course, Mr. Prime Minister," the Defense Governor walked with the Prime Minister to an open balcony overlooking the modern city before them.

"This alliance with Doom has me deeply troubled," the Prime Minister admitted.

"He is an unknown still, Robert," the Governor answered thoughtfully. "His allegiance may not be all that it seems. Certainly when last we spoke he appeared willing to assist us."

"He never had any intention of assisting us," the Prime Minister spat. "That much was obvious. If he is who he says he is, then the history books say that he is a man of low birth, a gypsy." The Prime Minister grimaced distastefully, stopping to light a cigarette and look out over the teeming city below. "Not much better than the rabble we are forced to deal with, and hardly the birthright worthy of a king. Still, I had not suspected that he would lend his aid so readily to the TKU. His presence there is a danger to our mission and our country. He must be dealt with."

"I have taken the liberty of assembling a special team to administer an appropriate remedy, sir," the Defense Governor added knowingly.

"Hmm, yes, well, I have heard that he is very well protected," the Prime Minister eyed his companion knowingly. "It would be far too dangerous to let him escape. Will your team have the tools necessary to get the job done?"

The Governor nodded. "Let me show you," he said, pressing a keypad on his wrist. Responding to the signal, a man stepped quickly into the room and approached the two dignitaries. He wore a jet-black combat uniform, and strode confidently toward the men, stopping to sharply salute. "The Captain here has some new technology we've been developing just for this occasion. If you'll be kind enough to show the Prime Minister, Captain?"

"Certainly, sir." The man reached into a holster at his belt and pulled out a small device which unfolded like a pocket knife. Folding out the two sides formed a handle, and from the center he pulled a thin flexible filament which extended beyond the handle approximately 8 inches. He held out the device in his open palm.

It didn't look like much of a weapon, and the Prime Minister's disappointment showed in his face.

The Governor stepped in to elucidate. "It's more dangerous than it looks, Prime Minister," he explained. "When charged, the argon shielded power shiv, or ASP, runs a low frequency electronic pulse along this wire, becoming as tough and as deadly as the sharpest blade ever developed. It can cut through flesh like water, and most armor like paper. It has been tested against numerous adamantine alloys and has proven the most effective tool we have. It is primarily a close contact weapon, but it can project a destructive pulse of energy as far as 50 meters. If you'll demonstrate, Captain."

"Yes, sir," the Captain stated obligingly. He flipped a switch on his belt pack and the little device began to hum. He held it carefully in both hands, the wire end pointed away from the men. The wire began to glow, and the humming grew louder. He watched the meter on the box carefully, and when it reached charge, he depressed and released a small button on the shiv. There was a loud whap! Then across the room, a table and vase shattered into splinters. He turned it off, and handed the device to the Prime Minister. "One or two blasts per charge," he instructed. "The shiv will remain charged for cutting for fifteen minutes, as long as the blast feature isn't used."

"Hmm, very well, if you're certain this will work against his armor," the Prime Minister stated, calmly looking over the device.

"As certain as we can be, sir," the Captain responded.

"You will only get one shot at this Captain," the Prime Minister handed the weapon back to the officer. His grey eyes turned cold. "Failure is not an option. Is that understood?"

The Governor of Defense looked away briefly, but the Captain's gaze remained calm.

"Perfectly, sir," he answered confidently.

**Later.**

Near the base of the rocky kopje, Doom studied the terrain carefully. He placed his gloved hands on top of a huge boulder, and seemed to be thinking. He did recognize this place, but from when he wasn't sure. He kept remembering falling, falling . . .

"I remember . . ."

"I am Doom . . . I am Doom!" I know nothing but these three words; it is the mantra to which my sanity clings. I am falling out of the sky . . . naked . . . my skin on fire as if newly born. The land rushes up to meet me. A whoosh of air escapes as the impact with the ground slams through my lungs. A moment of searing pain sends my consciousness into a black, quiet place. I struggle up from the abyss, and crawl defiantly toward the light.

"I am Doom . . . I am Doom . . . I am . . ."

I lay motionless, at this same level place near the bottom of the short hill. It was daytime, not night, and my memory flashes between the now and then as one might flip through the pages of a book. There was a stinging against my face and the taste of blood in my mouth. I lay for uncounted moments on the short grass, trying to catch my breath. My hands clutch the earth reflexively, spasms of joy and pain interchangeably firing my aching muscles, the comforting warmth of the sun on my bare back. There was the gentle kiss of wind through my hair, and the sweet rich smell of the warm earth. Finally, I open my eyes. "I am . . . alive." Silence. There are no hounds. "I am … home?" The pain in my bones is ignored as the intellect takes over. I take a deep breath at last, dismissing the sharp pain in my chest as I appraise my current situation. The air is sweet and clean, filled with the musty scent of wild animals. My eyes focus on several zebra grazing nearby, and a solitary giraffe looks down on me from high above before slowly loping away. Not "home" . . . Africa! What has brought me here? I move my head, daring to see more of my surroundings. The pain is still excruciating, but slowly it begins to wane.

I am not alone here. My confusion is completely forgotten now as every frayed nerve is instantly on edge. There is someone else here, laying only a few steps away in the grass. Someone, or something . . . metallic. He lies on his back, surrounded by folds of red cloth. He is motionless, dead? No, there is a trace of movement, as the breastplate lifts laboriously with each breath. Armor? Yes, unfamiliar, but . . . not . .

No! I am Doom!

My blood freezes. I am too weak to move, but I dig my fingers into the earth, ready to fight if need be. I struggle to rise, lifting myself onto my elbows to see the figure more clearly. He is covered head to toe in shining armor, laying face up on a red cape, and I see the eyes move toward me beneath the clear red lenses of the silver mask. There is anger in those eyes, and fear too. He is . . . Doom?

"Margaretta . . ." he says weakly, "help . . . me."

"Doom? Doom? Are you all right?" Billy Sinclair looked into that masked face with concern. Doom lifted his head and looked at him with surprise, his trance like reverie interrupted. "You've been standing like that for almost five minutes! Didn't you hear me?"

"No, I . . ." He turned around. A flash of lightning in the distance reflected eerily off his armor. He turned back to face the jumble of rock. "This place is not what it seems," he answered. He looked at the landscape as he slowly spun around, recognition suddenly clicking in his brain. He turned back suddenly, raising his gauntlets high to point at the rocky pile.

"Wait a second!" Sinclair shouted as he hurried to get out of the way. Doom's silver gauntlets began to glow with energy, forming a bright blue circle of lightening between his hands. Carefully, Doom pushed the building energy ball forward, until it completely encompassed the huge boulders that covered this side of the kopje. The glowing energy surrounded the rocks, then penetrated them, until they too glowed with frantically energized atoms that bounced frenetically against the artificial enclosure, struggling to break free! The energy surge formed a halo of blue photons, lighting up the dark plain like a brilliant new moon, visible for miles around. Doom stood like that for uncounted minutes, surrounded by and a part of the energy, until suddenly, he let loose with a single bright conclusive pulse of energy, and the wall of rock disintegrated!

Sinclair was awestruck by the display of power, but maintained his skepticism of this madman's actions. "And the point of that was . . .?"

Doom stepped up to where the boulders had once covered this stretch of earth. Yes, now it was exactly as he remembered it. He knelt down in the dry depression where the jumble of boulders had been, the earth still smoking from the energies which had freed it. The thick smoke obscured even the stars above, and Sinclair lost sight of Doom momentarily. He cautiously walked up behind Doom, but he didn't see what the Latverian was looking at until he was almost on top of him. As he approached, Billy's disbelief dropped with his jaw over what lay in the dirt before him.

A brilliant white human skeleton was embedded into the earth at Doom's feet. It was nearly intact, except for one missing left leg. Sinclair could tell right away that it was the same type of bone that he had found in the lion's den only a few meters above them. Doom had managed to modulate his gauntlet's energies so that only the surrounding rock was disintegrated, leaving the earth and the skeleton unharmed. He had known that the skeleton was here! But how?

Doom lifted the skull from the earth. The bone was amazingly durable, and had suffered only a minor crack along the parietal bone at the crown of the skull, probably from the boulders that had tumbled down onto it unknown years ago. There was a tiny tattoo, barely visible along the mandible, just below the teeth. Doom didn't have to examine it to know that it was the same bar code he'd seen on the femur, and that it identified this skull as "DOOM 2080 - Pacific NA." Whether or not he now understood what that code meant, he did not say.

Sinclair was curious, but he respected the other man's silence as the armored monarch crouched beside that strange burial. He looked away for a moment, and as he did he saw something that he had not noticed a minute ago. "Hey, there's something else here!" Sinclair shouted, as the smoke had cleared sufficiently for him to see a dark and ominous shape in the rock wall beside them. Something that had previously been hidden by the jumble of rocks Doom had removed. Sinclair's rifle was instantly off his shoulder, and he inched forward intently. So it was that he missed seeing Doom reach across the fallen skeleton to remove a small black chip, the size and shape of a domino that was still clutched in the dead man's bony right hand.

Sinclair moved cautiously forward, and found himself at the mouth of a large cave. The cave's entrance, hidden for unknown years by the fall of rock, was damp and full of hanging roots and giant silky spider webs. Inside was even darker than the night outside, and he fumbled in his pocket for a torch. As the cave lightened, he immediately saw a stainless steel door, conveniently placed only a few feet inside the rough rock wall that surrounded it. There didn't seem to be any handles or controls on the door, but there was a familiar triangle-shaped emblem on the surface of the steel and a square black pad on the wall beside it. Sinclair examined the black pad, which looked suspiciously like a palm print key pad. Just then, Doom stepped up behind him so quietly that Sinclair had to jump.

"Return to your transport and make your way back to the lab," Doom ordered quietly, moving between him and the door.

"Wait a . . . who was that guy anyway?" Sinclair protested. "And this looks like one of our doors! This must be another tunnel we didn't know about!"

"Do as I say, Sinclair," Doom said shortly, turning his back to the other man as he carefully removed one of his metal gauntlets. "If you want to save your companions, you must warn them that an SACC air strike is imminent. Their pilots will most likely use the storm clouds to cover their approach, and the PAD computer system still has forty-two minutes before repairs are completed."

"An air strike? What makes you think that the SACC would risk something that desperate now?"

"It is patently obvious. That, and it is precisely what I would do, were I in their position," Doom replied casually.

"But . . . but you could help us! Isn't that what you promised to General Nyirenda?" Sinclair complained. "What the shock are you going to be doing?"

"That is none of your concern, Sinclair," Doom shot back angrily.

"The bloody hell it isn't!" Sinclair argued defiantly. "We're not some experiment that you can manipulate without regard for the consequences! You have no right to build up our hopes and then dismiss us when it no longer suits your purpose!"

"Wrong, Mr. Sinclair!" Doom hissed back ferociously. "It is YOU who have no right to question ME, nor dictate what I should or should not do! I could kill you where you stand for your insolence and have no more care than I would for a lab rat! Because until now you have been nothing more than mice in a well-oiled maze, blissfully following the orders spat out by a computer program that you never bothered to understand nor control. If you seek to fashion your own destiny now, you must step outside the program and take it into your own hands! If not, have patience, and in 40 minutes the computer will begin running your life for you once more!" Doom turned around and placed his bare hand on the keypad. The huge metal door opened with a well-oiled whoosh.

Sinclair got a glimpse of a large room packed with machinery and monitoring equipment that suddenly began humming to life as Doom stepped into the room. "What of the TKU?" he finally asked, his bluster temporarily deflated. "Don't you care what will happen to this country should the SACC ever gain control of her?"

"Your misconception is that I am actually interested in this miserable little self-serving new age enclave you dare call a nation," Doom answered coldly as he turned around in the doorway. "Let me assure you that as far as I'm concerned, you have served your purpose. My participation here was only to gather the information necessary for me to attain goals that are far beyond your limited intellect! Insofar as this insignificant little war is concerned, once I've completed extracting the necessary files from your computer, my work here will have been completed, and I will leave your countries to settle your disputes however you see fit!" With that, Doom activated a control that closed the door, leaving Sinclair alone again in the darkening cave.

Bodo was puzzled. The young black boy wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew in his heart that the big lion that they had named Len, was not a bad animal. Something had been done to him to make him attack the man in the armor, and it wasn't the lion's fault. [_See Last Issue!_] But as the adults were arguing over something he didn't quite understand, there was something he did know. When he was six years old, he'd adopted one of the stray dogs that often wandered around M'tuto shantytown, living off whatever scraps they could find outside the meager huts his family called home. Bodo didn't so much as own the pup, that was not allowed. However, he did save little bits and pieces of his own dinner and whatever food he could scrounge, and hid them in his shirt to feed the mangy little dog when it came around their hut. The dog was tamer than most and let Bodo scratch his ears and it even licked his face with a warm pink tongue on occasion. But one day near the wall, one of the SACC guards kicked the little dog when it got too close to his lunch, and more out of fear than anger, the dog had snapped at the guard. In the next instant the little dog was dead, shot through the head by the SACC guard. His mother had explained to a grief-stricken Bodo that any animal that dared to bite a man was a dangerous creature, and had to be dealt with swiftly and mercifully.

Bodo remembered that lesson now as he stared at the sleeping lion through the bars of his cage. There was a noble magnificence to its broad forehead and shaggy mane that the young boy recognized intuitively. It would be a cruel mistake to kill the lion, was the thought that kept repeating in his mind.

Bodo looked carefully toward the door where Dr. Norbitt and Musleh had disappeared moments earlier to check on a disturbance in the tunnels. They could be back at any moment, his only opportunity was now, or never. He pulled open the door to the cage and knelt by the big lion's head, but the lion did not stir from its em-induced slumber. The device that Dr. Norbitt had attached to the lion's forehead was still there, so Bodo reached over and grasped it in both hands, gingerly pulling it away from the flesh. The lion instantly snorted, opened its eyes, and yawned, exposing broad white teeth and a pink tongue that curled delicately at the end. Bodo held his breath, wondering if the lion would attack him. But Len simply moved his massive head to rub affectionately against the boy. Bodo laughed, and buried his face in that shaggy mane as he gave his friend a welcoming hug.

There was little time for heartfelt reunions though, for Bodo knew that the two adults would be back soon. He secretly feared too, the return of the armored man, not knowing if Len would spontaneously attack the visitor like he had done last time. Fortunately, the boy had already formulated a plan. In scrounging around the lab moments earlier he had found a long forgotten doorway behind a heavy bookcase. He had been able to move the bookcase with some effort, and in opening the door he found a tunnel that led off into the distance. He didn't know where the tunnel went, but there was no time to find out. Leading the lion gently by the mane, Bodo guided him toward the waiting doorway.

"Come on, Len," he prodded, "we have to get you out of here!"

Len needed little prompting. When he saw the doorway, he headed through it boldly, and after sniffing the air for a moment, the lion began to trot swiftly down the long corridor, leaving his human escort behind.

"Hey! Wait up!" Bodo cried, as he hurried off after the loping lion.

Topside, Billy Sinclair was racing back toward the underground lab where he had left his friends. He was also contacting General Nyirenda at TKU battle camp a dozen miles west of his position via the vid-phone on the hovercraft he was piloting.

"That's all I know, General," he was saying. "Doom says to expect an air strike under cover of the clouds. The automated defense systems won't be ready for another . . . thirty two minutes, so you'll have to hold them off until then and pray that PAD starts working on time!"

General Nyirenda's white haired head turned to bark an order to his aides, "Evacuate all non-combat personnel to the underground shelters, and intensify radar and magna-helix sweeps of air space! Let's try to get some targeting anti-aircraft lasers online while we're at it!" He turned back to the vid phone. "We've been holding our own against the ground troops, Doom's strategy appears to be working out well," Nyirenda stated. "But an effective air strike could prove disastrous. What words have you of Doom?" he asked.

Sinclair frowned, then said, "He's not coming to help, General," he answered sadly. "We're on our own, now."

"That is unfortunate," the General replied with calm fortitude, hiding his disappointment well. "Where are you headed now? We could use your piloting skills against those bombers!"

"Sorry, General, but I'm in no shape to fly combat until this arm heals," Sinclair lifted his wounded left arm, still partially bandaged. "I'm going to head back to the lab and help our people to safer refuge. The lab's one of our installations likely to be targeted by those bombers, and I don't think it would survive a direct hit, even underground."

"Very well, then," the General answered, "but be careful. There are still enemy soldiers in the warrens too, and we may not be able to spare anyone to initiate a rescue."

Sinclair recognized what the General meant. If he was going behind enemy lines, he was going on his own. "Understood," he answered shortly. "Good luck, sir."

"And to you as well, son," the General replied. "Nyirenda out."

Doctor Norbitt arrived back in the lab just a few minutes later, and instantly noticed something amiss. "Bodo?" she cried, looking about the shambles of the room, her normally orderly lab in a state of disarray after the distressing events of that afternoon. "Bodo?" she called again, "Bodo, where have you gone? And what have you done with the lion? Oh, shock!" she ended, as she opened the door to the very empty cage. The discarded neural transmitter on the floor caught her eye, and she picked it up. A look of frustration and worry crossed her broad black face as she imagined the worst that could have happened.

"Musleh! We have to find Bodo!" she called to the Indian companion just entering the lab. "He's gone somewhere, and taken Len with him." The scientist ran to one of the locked cabinets at the back of the room. She swiftly opened the cabinet and removed a heavy laser rifle from its secure position, slinging the weighty weapon over her shoulder. Hurriedly she grabbed a number of battery packs and stuffed them into the pockets of her lab coat.

"Where has our young charge gone?" Musleh asked glancing about the room. There were two other entrances into the large laboratory complex, and a third that he'd never noticed until now. Musleh walked over to the door that was slightly ajar behind a heavy bookcase. "Now this is a very strange place indeed for a door," he commented quietly.

"Do you think the SACC troops could have got him?" Dr. Norbitt replied worriedly, noticing the door for the first time also.

Musleh's answer was interrupted by Billy Sinclair dropping in out of the airlock travel tube. "No time for explanations folks," he announced as he stepped out of the clear plastimetal tube. "Time to head for deeper cover. Musleh, get it in gear partner, we have to get the rest of the staff to the sub-levels."

"We seem to have lost our prisoner, and our lion as well, Billy," Musleh answered.

"There are SACC troops in this section," Dr. Norbitt added nervously. "They've broken through at the maintenance yard, and are headed this way."

"Then we haven't any time to spare!" Sinclair cried. "Do you think Bodo's gone down there?" he asked, looking in the hidden doorway where his friends had gathered.

"In all likelihood, yes, since this door was still concealed behind the bookcase when we left him here a short while ago," Musleh answered.

"Someone will have to go after him," Sinclair answered. "We have to evacuate the rest of the staff to the shelters while there's still time!"

Just then a loud warning siren echoed loudly through the underground complex.

"What the . . . ?" Dr. Norbitt asked above the shrill din.

"Air raid," Sinclair responded with a grimace. "Doom was right. They're here. We're running out of time!"

"You two take care of the others," Dr. Norbitt ordered, suddenly pushing Sinclair aside at the doorway. "I'll find Bodo."

"Dr. Norbitt, wait! It's too dangerous! There could be enemy troops down that way!" Sinclair protested.

"No time to argue, Billy," Dr. Norbitt responded. "You two will be faster without me. Besides, it's my lion!" She turned away and started quickly down the hallway, calling over her shoulder, "Don't worry! I'll meet you in the basement in a few minutes!"

"But . . ." then Sinclair was silent as she disappeared from view. "Bloody hell," he muttered, then turned to his friend. "First Doom, now Lupe. You're not going to get all heroic and do something stupid now, are you?"

"Not I, Mr. Billy" Musleh replied, and added with a wink, "at least, not until I can collect on that two hundred credits you still owe me!"

"Well, if a bomb lands on our heads, all bets are off," Billy replied as they hustled out of the lab and headed toward the staff's living quarters.

Doom sat in near darkness in a quiet, private room as still and as cold as a tomb. Reams of data were silently streaming across multiple monitors that formed a glowing bank in front of him. Equipment which was as familiar as his own teeth lined the vault from floor to ceiling. Half-built robots and an incomplete suit of armor lay gathering dust along the edges of the room. Gleaming weapons, in pristine condition, were suspended by anti-grav beams in a macabre display in a small alcove off of the main room. A lab bench, with beakers of bright liquid and neat rows of tubes and distillation machines, was covered in thick dust and adorned with silky cobwebs. The stuffed head of a hyena, with grimacing teeth that glowed brightly in the dim light, was mounted on one wall. It was, indescribably ugly. But it was the only natural thing in the room, and perhaps it had a hidden meaning that was known only to the room's designer.

All this was seemingly lost on Doom, whose undivided attention was focused on a single glowing monitor upon which his mirror image hauntingly appeared. The man on the screen wore the same armor he had worn to his final victory over America, and the image spoke in a voice as clear and precise as his own. This, this . . . Other, sat where he now sat, and addressed the screen as his private audience, his words pouring forth in an uninterrupted stream of consciousness. These were his private logs, and it had taken Doom less than a minute to deduce the secret password that had redundantly hidden them in this sealed room, safe from all other eyes until now. Certainly it was unnerving, to see this man who was he, but was not, speaking in his voice, gesturing as he did, the very essence of his thoughts and manners and inflections a perfect match to his own. Only these were not his words, and this was not his memory. Of that he was certain. For this Other, was dying.

His replica addressed the screen. "The current treatment regimen has stalled the cellular degeneration by a full 74 percent, however, the cure has proven almost as debilitating as the disease, and I dare not return to the Pacific Citadel until my strength is regained. Dr. Norbitt continues to fail me in our attempts to identify a complete remedy for my condition. I have confidence however that a solution is within my reach. He who was my predecessor, the one who designed and constructed this facility, was a brilliant strategist. This enclave of genetic scientific achievement survived undiscovered for years while quietly laboring away at the highest level of research into the mystery of life, mutation, and ultimately the survival of the human race. The finest geneticists in the world are nurtured here in this secret fortress, protected from the corruption of outside corporate interference. Could he have foreseen that this facility would prove to be the sole salvation of his rightful successor? Yes, his insight was grand, as was mine in finding this one place unknown to her, this one refuge, where I may search for a cure in peace. Still, Margaretta's manipulations of the genetic structure are far beyond what anyone else on this earth has been able to achieve, adding to my suspicions that she is not what she appears. However, this body has already outlived its programmed life expectancy by almost a year, and that certainly has my vile nemesis foaming at the mouth. Good! I plan to deliver more surprises before I am through!"

Doom fast forwarded the track to another entry: Frrzzzt! "I am beginning to exhibit symptoms of decay in all major organ systems. I have augmented the second generation nanotech in my blood stream, but these have proven to affect only a temporary repair. I will continue to search for an alternative solution while Norbitt and his staff pursue research into sub-cellular replacement therapy and genetic acculturation to the diseased tissue."

Frrzzzt! The red cloak floated to the chair as the Other sat down hurriedly. He was agitated. "I may have acted rashly in my treatment of Dr. Norbitt. His prodigious ineptitude at finding a cure has heightened my growing sense of evanescence. My attempt to recreate the Ovoid mind transfer procedure from my past life has met with complete failure. I can only assume that once again Margaretta has tampered with my memories to keep this option safely out of reach. This, coupled with my increasing physical infirmity has forced me to continue to sequester here until a viable resolution can be found. I continue to monitor world events through my various agents, but I find I have little energy left for superfluous sparring with my ageless nemesis."

Frrzzzt! "The treatments I have devised are no longer effective, and the cellular degeneration has now accelerated, as if making up for lost time." The Other laid his head briefly in his open palm, as if tired beyond measure, or lost in thought. "I concede that she has designed this trap well. Yet I refuse to return to her lair and subject myself to her games and layers of deceit. She has followed me across the globe in a vain attempt to engage me in some meaningless folly, but her motives are suspect, her true agenda, unknown."

Frrzzzt! "I have detected the evil hand of the Neon Angel once more, stirring the pot of political intrigue and world events. Fair Latveria has fallen to a mercenary scoundrel, and she thinks this action will draw me out of my hiding. But, I dare not leave my sanctuary in my current, infirm condition. The Doombots I sent to deal with Tiger Wylde were flawed, and they have been unable to oust the usurper. I have neither the resources nor the time to mount an adequate offensive from here, nor do I dare, for risk of alerting Margaretta to my presence. Damn that treacherous witch! She will pay for this heinous affront!"

Just outside a deserted hallway, Bodo slipped quietly through an open doorway into a large, vacant room. "Len?" he offered shyly, looking for any sign of the once wild lion. He found himself standing inside a large hall cluttered from floor to ceiling with paintings, pottery, hand woven baskets, ancient Masai spears and masks, piles of newspaper, several stuffed native animals including an enormous bull elephant, stone tablets, and any number of artifacts of historical significance to the continent of Africa. Never having had much of an education, most of this collection held little significance to the 13-year-old boy. Yet he was intelligent enough to be awed by dust-covered relics he did recognize, and the dates on the yellowed sheets of newsprint showed him that some of it was very old indeed. He ran his hand over one sheet of newsprint that proclaimed Nelson Mandela as the first black president of South Africa. The year was 1994.

"A black man, President?" he said to himself. "How could that be?"

He shrugged, and moved onto a giant mask, carved from wood with fearsome, exaggerated features. Even in the low light and the years of neglect, the bright colors that had once enlivened the mask's features were vividly intact. He lifted the spear from its resting place. Behind it was a glass case, with a partial human like skull carefully displayed. The bone was glued together in places, brown and obviously very old, with a black clay-like material filling in for the missing pieces. It looked almost human to Bodo, but not quite. Attached to the glass case was a gold plaque with a long word he did not understand, "Australopithecus Afarensis," and under that a single name which he did recognize, "Lucy." On top of the case was a faded photograph, curled at the edges. The black and white image showed a number of black men and women gathered about some round mud huts. The men wore little but loincloths and carried spears and heavy wooden clubs. Some of the women were half naked with little children in tow or slung easily on their hips. They seemed relaxed, almost joyful, as some pointed or laughed secretively among themselves at some event which had brought them all together, a moment captured in time from some long ago age. Clearly visible in the background was a man in a dark cape and armor, similar to, but not exactly like, the armored man he had seen in the lab earlier today. There were no dates or marks on the photo. Curious, but unaware of the significance of these artifacts, Bodo replaced the photo and the wooden spear where he had found them, and moved further down the hall. His wonder at the strange mix of artifacts had blurred his intentions, and his eagerness to find the escaped lion was no longer foremost in his mind.

So it was his fate that he stumbled upon a large poster, hanging from a pole with a number of other, similar posters. Most of the images seemed to declare one name or another for a future political office, but this one was different. He immediately recognized the handsome black man that dominated the center of the poster. He was neatly dressed in white shirt and tie, and he carried a leather satchel. His eyes looked away, as if to the future, bright with hope and promise beneath closely cut tight black curls. Bodo caught his breath as he recognized the image he'd seen so poorly reproduced in the temples and secret shrines of M'tuto shantytown. It was none other than the Prophet himself. The Messengers of the Prophet, who had sent Bodo to cross the minefield (_See Doom 2099 UG #47_), had deified and worshiped this image for decades, and his prophecy of renewal and triumph for black South Africans is what had sustained them and unified them when their world had become an asylum of slavery and repression. Yet, the words beneath the feet of the Prophet did not make sense. Bodo, who could read a little, felt a lump in his throat as he read those words, and tried to connect what he saw with what he had believed for all of his life. In bold letters, the poster proclaimed, "Join us and Protect the Profits of Africa!" and smaller letters underneath instructed, "International technical training centers now open! See your local recruiter today!" Bodo stood and stared, his jaw tightly clenched, and fought back the tears as he slowly began to comprehend the lie that they had lived for so long.

Doom was growing restless. Or perhaps, the logs were triggering unpleasant thoughts. He paced the room, letting the Other speak freely once more. "Dr. Norbitt is dead." The Other was silent for a moment. Doom looked up, wondering if this was the end. "No matter," the log continued, "his line of research was flawed. It appears that I will now die in this wretched hole. I have cut off all contact with the remaining TKU staff, having exhausted their limited knowledge. They can go to hell for all I care, the miserable, mole-like wretches! I should never have trusted their puny efforts to begin with. My mighty predecessor was duped, the fool! There is no fountain of youth, no elixir of eternal life! I have reached the inevitable and unenviable conclusion, and the last of my energy will be best directed along another track."

The SACC bombers came flying out of the night sky like hellions of fire. Wholesale destruction rained out of their bellies, leveling land and buildings across the embattled countryside indiscriminately. Bold pilots strafed the nearly abandoned command post, fearlessly streaking past as flames leapt into the sky behind them. Inexperienced gunmen on the ground could barely follow the erratic movements of the swift enemy planes, much less target them with ground to air laser fire. The dark sky was equally filled with brilliant beams of light and voluminous clouds of black billowing smoke. The TKU troops on the ground could do nothing but cower in their bunkers, praying to their gods that their next breath would not be their last. In the tunnels below, the bombs' shrieking fury loosened reinforced steel support structures and sent chunks of concrete and red earth crumbling into the corridors as whole sections of tunnel gave way under the barrage.

The bombing had disrupted the playback of the computer log as power was momentarily cut off to his secret sanctum. It had taken him a few minutes to reroute power, but Doom seemed unconcerned with the bombardment from above, and he proceeded at an unhurried pace. The room was now lit by emergency red lights that reflected hauntingly off of his expressionless steel mask. As the log played on, Doom continued his solemn pacing, listening attentively to the droning of his twin as he examined evidence of the other's work on the benches and in the books still scattered about. Occasionally, he would fast forward the record to find the crucial details of the recorded journal.

Frrzzzt! "I now predict that I have six months left to live, maybe less. But I refuse to lie down and die like a dog! By my blood, Margaretta will not win this day! I pledge my last breath to it. I have begun to look to the past now for my salvation. There are clues in secret places that I have gathered, artifacts, morsels of information that were left behind. Doctor Doom has been dead in this century for eighty years or more, but he didn't just disappear! I must know what happened to him, why he left, where . . . how. When. I begin by sorting through the memories I was programmed with, the knowledge, incomplete though it may be, that I was given at my most unholy conception, and try to extract the core knowledge of Doom!"

In the tunnels, Billy and Musleh had moved a huge chunk of concrete to free some of their countrymen trapped in a damaged section of the warrens. When the last of the scientists was clear, the two weary rescuers sat down on the tumble of rock for a well-needed break. Above them, the bombardment had paused also, although by Billy's timepiece it was clear that their automated defensive system would not be ready for at least ten more minutes. He wondered if they could hold out that long.

"Movement, Billy," Musleh whispered suddenly at his side. The savvy tracker pointed his motion detector to a part of the tunnels that should have been deserted. That could only mean one thing - enemy troops! "This way," Musleh added quietly.

The two men hurried cautiously over rubble in the darkened tunnel until they got to a kind of balcony overlooking a larger chamber and connecting tunnels beneath them. The radiance from the emergency lights bathed the room below them in a deep crimson, but the circular opening where Sinclair and Musleh crouched was draped in concealing shadow. There was a whisper of movement in the lower chamber, and the two men crept forward, their guns ready at their sides.

At first they could see nothing, and then they spotted the furtive black shapes moving from one bit of cover to the next in precise formation. The intruders were using hand signals to communicate, and so moved seamlessly and silently through the unfamiliar territory. There were a dozen soldiers in all, clad completely in black from head to toe, with weapons exotic and ordinary strapped to every conceivable place on their bodies. They passed right below the two men, moving swiftly into an adjacent tunnel, apparently blind to the small audience several meters above them.

Musleh raised his gun, taking sight of the lead officer, but Billy placed a hand on the barrel, gently lowering it. Musleh looked at him with a questioning glance.

"Leave them," Sinclair instructed with a whisper.

"That tunnel leads to the chamber where you left Doom," Musleh protested quietly.

Billy nodded. "I know."

"That was no ordinary strike team, Billy!" Musleh added as they backed out of the tunnel. "Clearly it is an assassination team. They can only have one goal in mind if they are headed down that way!"

"I said leave them!" Sinclair answered angrily. He frowned, then explained, "Doom has abandoned us to our fate. Let him now face his own!" Shouldering his weapon decisively, Billy turned and stalked silently back.

Doom listened as the recording of his diseased twin continued, recognizing with a clinical detachment that the tone had grown steadily more frantic as death approached. He advanced the playback to another entry in the personal log. Frrzzzt! "I am Doom! I AM Doom! This is madness! I remember . . . I remember," the voice faded to a resigned frustration. "I remember nothing of this place. Try as I might, there are elements of my memory which have been erased, including the conception and construction of this underground sanctuary. Yet my research has conclusively revealed that it was his! His hand and his genius are everywhere I look, in every program, in every manifesto, everywhere. Yet without full restoration of that knowledge and those memories, I am surely doomed. The answers must be in Latveria. I will search further, while my minions abroad continue to collect all remaining records and artifacts connected to the late Victor Von Doom. These remnants, his words, personal records, detailed research, and inventions of my . . . his genius, they are not for the common rabble." He held up a golden disc. "Information such as this would be disastrous in the wrong hands. The Neon Angel has already proven that. If necessary, all records of Doom on this earth will die with me!"

A warning flashed on an adjacent console, and Doom immediately stopped the playback. He stepped over to the security monitors. A black garbed SACC assault team was inching its way past one of the still active hidden security cameras. The bombing of the underground warrens had damaged some, but not all, of Doom's concealed defenses, and the enemy soldiers were moving unopposed down the wide white corridor. He watched closely for a moment, as the team leader consulted guidance systems and an energy signature beacon. Doom immediately recognized their purpose and intent, as the energy signature that they were following was none other than his own. He nodded. They were right on time. His hand went instinctively to a nearby switch and lifted the cover which guarded it from accidental activation. Then he stopped. There was another unauthorized person in the corridors, caught on a separate monitor but still within the sphere of his automated defense. He considered this for only an instant, and was about to callously activate the switch anyway when he saw a second person enter the field of view. He paused again, this time drumming his fingers angrily on the console in agitated thought. A decision reached, he covered the switch again with its red guard, turned away from the monitors and promptly marched out the door.

Lupe had followed the disturbances in the dust on the floor, easily tracing Bodo's steps to the forgotten library of African relics. She cringed as the sounds of explosions boomed through the tunnels, but the destructive forces seemed to be far away from where she was now. The large black woman turned to look back the way she had come, and hoped that her friends were unharmed. Up ahead the hall was lit by the emergency beacons, but the path was still clear. She kept her weapon ready, and cautiously hurried forward.

When she found Bodo, the boy was still in the hall of history. The learned doctor spared a momentary glance at the gathered artifacts, but then focused her attention on the boy. He was standing perfectly still, and with his back to her he had not heard her approach. His black hands covered his face, and his bare shoulders shook slightly.

"Bodo?" Lupe touched his shoulder lightly. The boy turned, and his face was streaked with tears. "Shhh . . . hush now, child," Lupe said comfortingly, instinctively circling the troubled boy gently in her large arms.

Bodo let himself be cradled for a moment, then pushed away, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "I'm all right," he said quietly, "I'm all right." He touched the hanging poster, to show the doctor the source of his grief. "The Messengers, they've been wrong all this time. The Prophet isn't really coming, is he?"

Lupe looked at the poster and sighed. She knew a little of the Messengers of the South African provinces and their religion, so she recognized the icon depicted on the poster. "Ah, Bodo," she stated, struggling for the right words, "faith . . . faith is what you believe in your heart, little one. Perhaps you should not take this, so literally. But we have to go back now, and seek shelter. Hurry."

Bodo pulled free of her grasp and reached for the poster. "I have to show them this," he announced, "I have to show them proof that they were wrong." He tore down the poster, ripping it a little, and then rolled it quickly down to a size he could manage, smoothing it carefully in his hands.

"Come," Dr. Norbitt instructed impatiently. "This way!"

"You cannot go that way," a deep voice announced out of the darkness, as a giant shadow stepped into their path.

Lupe gasped, and pulled the boy close as the armored bulk of Doom appeared out of the gloom and marched toward them.

"You should not have come here, Dr. Norbitt," Doom scolded angrily.

Lupe pulled her heavy laser weapon out from behind her back, and pointed it menacingly at Doom. "Then I wouldn't have had the chance to do this!" she proclaimed brazenly. "Maybe this will do what the lion could not, and bring peace at last to the memory of my father!"

Doom held his hands up pleadingly, but continued to boldly approach the armed woman. "If you kill me now, then you will never escape the tunnels," he disclosed calmly. "There are a dozen SACC special operative soldiers headed this way. They will kill you and the boy with nary a second thought." He stepped forward, so that the muzzle of the doctor's weapon was only a few inches from his armored chest plate. At this range, it was questionable whether even his advanced armor would save him from that deadly force.

Lupe's hands sweated nervously as she fingered the trigger of the powerful gun. She returned his cold stare with tight-lipped determination, but she could not bring herself to pull the trigger.

Doom continued, "Only I can show you a secret path that will take you and the boy to safety."

"Why should I trust you?" she shouted back. "You're nothing but a cold-blooded murderer! You could be sending us straight into the path of those soldiers to our death!"

Doom placed a gloved hand on the muzzle of the gun and gently pushed so it was pointed away from his body. Dr. Norbitt did not resist as he took it from her. "And both of us know that you are not a murderer, even when inflamed with the passion of vengeance, Dr. Norbitt," Doom said quietly. "If I had wanted you dead, I could have killed you the instant I walked into the room. Now, if you and the boy will step this way." Doom walked up to the stuffed bull elephant, and placing a hand on a secret place below the left ear, activated the mechanism that caused the entire platform on which the elephant stood to move back. Below the platform, a hidden stairway was revealed, leading into the deepest parts of the underground warrens.

"Follow the corridor. It will lead you to a secure place," he instructed dispassionately.

"What of my lion?" Bodo asked as he started to descend.

Doom looked away, listening to a distant warning claxon. "Hurry," he said impatiently, ignoring the boy.

"Len will be all right, Bodo," Dr. Norbitt said as she followed him down the steps. She stopped to look back at Doom. "I know that I saw you that day in the lab when I was still a girl. There was shouting, an argument, and I hid in the cupboard, afraid. You broke my father's back in a fit of rage. Fourteen years, and still the memory of that day is vivid in my mind," Lupe's eyes began to tear up. She swallowed her pain and continued. "He tried to carry on with his work after that, but it was as if the life had gone out of him then. When he died, I vowed that I would one day see you dead. But you were right. Unlike you, I am a poor murderer. Yet, after what I tried to do, you had every right to wish me dead. Now, I don't know what to think." She looked away. "I feel such shame."

"I sense that your father," Doom started slowly, "would have been proud of what you have done here. Your shame is unwarranted. Despite what you believe, I was not the one who killed him. Another man, who wore armor like this one, was the rightful culprit. But your quest for retribution is futile. That man died not long after your father."

"How do I know that?" she retorted.

"You have my word." Doom explained. "That should be enough. However, know that Doom has no need for petty fabrications. The man who killed your father was buried not far from here. You examined his bones in your lab, several days ago."

"The mysterious bone Billy brought me?" Lupe asked. Doom nodded. "But, you still haven't answered why you're helping us?"

Doom looked away. "Consider a debt owed your father, repaid," he said quietly, and activated the switch that once more concealed the hidden stairway beneath the towering mammoth.

Doom sat back down on the central chair, the throne that dominated this cold, cryptic chamber. He felt a certain sense of dread at continuing forward, but he knew that he must. Frrzzzt! "The body is failing now." The Other sat limply in the chair, the same chair now occupied by another, so like him in many ways. But for the Other, the silver armor had lost its gleam and the end was surely near. The voice was raspy and weak, a hoarse whisper. Despite the obvious pain, he continued, "Only the armor supports me, and now I sense that my mind is going. My memory is pocked by periods of emptiness, blackness. I have a vague recollection of frenzied outbursts of dementia. These logs may be tainted by delusions. They can no longer be trusted as accurate. It is, a most ignoble ending. But the beacon has finally been established. All I can do now is wait, to see, if he is still out there . . . somewhere. My greatest fear is that Margaretta will intercept the beacon, and send instead one of her accursed clones. The evidence is incontrovertible; she will have by now constructed another clone and will no doubt use the same memory implant that she used on me. If such is the case, he will find me far from helpless should he dare to confront me here! "

Doom paused the playback to watch another monitor. The SACC strike team had advanced further into the tunnels. It was time. Doom reached over and activated his deadly defenses.

The first men to fall when the lasers crisscrossed the hallway never knew what cut them down. Their deaths were instant and merciful. For the remainder, skill and training and luck sent them dropping to the floor instinctively. The need for secrecy was now lost, as the leaders abandoned their hand signals and whispered orders, and began to scream commands to those who came behind. Their cunning subterfuge had been laid bare, like a gaping wound of stinking rotted flesh blistering in the sun. Haste was now their focus. They moved forward on their bellies underneath the laser beams, half hidden now by the gathering smoke that billowed from the charred remains of the comrades who had fallen. Despite the danger and the cries of fear all around him, the Captain refused to retreat. He knew that he could not fail in this mission, and he screamed passionately at his men to move their sorry asses. Better that they fear him, than some unknown and unseen trap lying in wait ahead of them. And as the Captain cleared the lasers and crouched in an open hallway, he knew that Doom was not finished with them yet.

In the skies above the TKU, the SACC fighter planes readied for another bombing run at their enemy below. TKU ground troops ran for their lives across an open expanse toward the safety of the trenches, frighteningly exposed to the strafing fire of the deadly jets above them. In his partially buried bunker, General Nyirenda watched through night scope binoculars as the planes gathered in formation above them and then turned as one toward the open grasslands.

Colonel Moore stepped up beside the General. "Doom will have those defenses up, sir," he said quietly. "I have faith that he will not abandon us!"

The General lowered his binoculars. "I hope so, John," he whispered slowly. "If not, we are surely doomed." His staff watched the radar scopes in fearful anticipation, but not a one had fled their post. They looked to the General for direction, but he could only sigh with weary anticipation. All around them the antiaircraft ground fire filled the sky with deadly beams, but their manual defenses had been mournfully ineffectual. Nyirenda raised the scopes to his eyes as one of the bombing planes set a course for the remaining TKU troops. He turned away, and ordered his staff to seek cover, but all knew that there was no cover left to take. Even the tunnels below them would not withstand another bombardment.

The pilot in the SACC plane checked his coordinates and smiled a little. It was too easy, he must have thought for a moment, maneuvering effortlessly around the futile ground barrage. He armed his bombs, and targeted once more the structural weak point the computer had identified in the tunnels below ground. His hand was on the trigger when a powerful beam of green energy tore through his ship and his body with equal ease, killing him before he ever saw what hit him.

General Nyirenda's staff erupted in shouts of joy and relief all around the stunned botanist. There had been no warning, no sound or motion to clue them in, but the Perimeter Automated Defense system had come on line at last with a sweltering vengeance. Dozens of high energy particle beams erupted from the ground at their feet, targeting the enemy planes with incredible accuracy. Where moments ago the skies above the TKU had been filled with horrifying birds of prey, they were now illuminated by a brilliant pyrotechnical display of exploding aircraft and a shower of red hot molten debris that cascaded merrily out of the sky. So fast and complete was the destruction of the enemy aircraft, that not a single cry for help escaped the lips of the SACC pilots before their existence on this earth was extinguished.

Dozens of TKU troops came running out of their bunkers to yell and scream at the dying embers above them, firing their weapons joyfully into the sky. General Nyirenda looked to his staff, who were all smiles as their scopes were coming up empty. Nyirenda stepped outside. The night sky was quiet and still at last, broken only by the distant cheers of his weary troops. He looked up into the darkness, and felt the first touch of rain which kissed his black cheeks in a gentle blessing. The thunder had passed, and the replenishing rain finally swept down from above, to drench the falling fires and bathe the land in the promise of renewal once more.

The SACC Special Forces team had steadily unraveled under the relentless pressure of Doom's evil traps. Those still remaining had endured crisscrossing lasers, sinking floors, and hidden pitfalls. Of the original twelve, only four now remained, and one of those hobbled along only with considerable assistance. The strain was evident in every man's face. But the Captain would not turn back, even now that their brutal defeat seemed imminent. His jaw was set, his steel blue eyes focused ahead.

"Move it, Kelly!" the Captain ordered angrily, as they paused in a smoke-filled corridor, enjoying a brief respite from the maddening traps that sprang at them from every corner. "Move it, I said!" he added, upset with his comrade's slow response. "This isn't a stroll in the park, Mister!"

Lt. Kelly grimaced and pushed forward as fast as he could, but he was burdened by the weight of a larger man he carried over his shoulder. The other man was badly beat up, dragging his legs as if unconscious. "Armstrong's hurt bad, Cap'n!" Kelly grunted as he finally made it to where the Captain was waiting. He let the wounded man fall from his shoulders and set him down against the wall. The wounded soldier groaned a little, but said nothing. His head slumped forward, and his broken body sagged. He was missing one foot, and a hasty bandage had been tied around the remains of his lower left leg.

The Captain took one look at his wounded man and the expression of disgust deepened across his brow. "Leave him," he ordered coldly, turning away to plan his next move.

"We don't leave men behind, sir!" Kelly shouted back angrily, standing defensively over his comrade.

"We don't stand a chance getting out of here alive unless the mission is completed, Lieutenant!" the Captain shouted back. "I need every man I've got left armed and able, not playing corpsman to some half dead bit wad who passes out at the sight of his own blood, when he ought to be watching my back! Leave the shockin' retread here and let's finish this mission, soldier!"

"We can't finish, Captain! Don't you get it? We're beaten! Doom's won!" Lt. Kelly argued back. "There's no way the three of us can take him on now and hope to win! Our only chance is to go back and try to make it to the rendezvous point for our transport! It's over!"

"It's not over!" the Captain grabbed his tactical officer's flak vest in both hands and shoved him forcibly against the wall. He ranted relentlessly, his face turning red as he stood over the other man, their eyeballs only inches apart. "I won't have any cowards in my command! It isn't over until Doom is dead! Do you understand? We will never retreat! There can be no going back! Either way we're dead men!"

"Cap . . . you're insane!" Kelly answered, fear suddenly surfacing in his eyes.

"Am I?" the Captain yelled back. "Am I? How long has it been since you've heard our bombers overhead? Didn't you hear those lasers going off? There is no ride waiting for us at the rendezvous, you shocking little dirt bag!" The Captain dropped his man roughly back onto the floor and stepped back. "The air raid has been turned back! Our only way out of here is forward, do you understand me?"

"But what about Armstrong, Cap'n Baar?" Kelly shouted back, still sprawled on the floor of the smoky hallway. "We don't leave men behind!"

Captain Baar stood over the unconscious Armstrong and lifted his head with the muzzle of his rifle. The other man was unresponsive, and his half-open eyes were rolled back in his head. "He's dead," the Captain announced coldly, his sweat dripping down his grimy forehead as teeth clenched in his square jaw.

"No!" Kelly shouted, panic in his eyes. He scrambled over on hands and knees to grab his buddy by the shirt and shake him. "C'mon, Army. Wake up, man! We gotta get movin'!" There was a faint groan that came from the unconscious man. "Get up, mate!" Kelly begged, but the other didn't move.

BLAM!

Kelly leapt back instinctively as the sound of the rifle report close at hand sent him ducking for cover. When he looked up, it was to see the Captain standing over them, the rifle in his hands still smoking. There was a huge hole in Armstrong's chest, and a blood red stain was spreading rapidly over his black fatigues. Lieutenant Kelly looked up at his commanding officer with growing fear, the blood and gore from his dead teammate spattered on his hands and face.

Captain Baar was unapologetic. "I said he was dead," he announced dispassionately.

Kelly could only gape in sputtering disbelief.

"Lafferty," the Captain ordered his one remaining infantryman. "Take the point."

The younger soldier grimaced as he stepped over his fallen comrade, but silently did as ordered, hunkering down over his rifle as he swallowed his fear and scrambled slowly through the hallway ahead.

The Captain rattled his gun threateningly, and pointed the way ahead. "Move it, Lieutenant," he ordered, motioning for him to follow the infantryman.

Kelly stood and glared at his once respected commander. They were equally matched, and for a moment he thought about taking the other man down. But he was a military man to the core, and all he could do was to chew on his building hatred in silence. He looked down the hallway, then gathered his weapons to follow the other, looking over his shoulder only once to wonder with calm clarity whether Baar might shoot him in the back as he did.

He needn't have worried, for they were closer to their goal than he thought. They reached a sealed door, and from the readings on Kelly's monitor, this was it. Doom was inside. The three men gathered together to plot their next move, as they dropped their rifles and armed themselves with the experimental ASP's, the argon shielded power shiv supposedly strong enough to take out even Doom's armor. They checked the charges on their weapons, then looked to Captain Baar for direction.

Inside the chamber, Doom was still reviewing the logs of his predecessor, but the end was nearing. Frrzzzt! "Margaretta!" - - kaff kaff - - "You foul witch! You will have to find another plaything!" Somehow, the Other lifted himself up out of the chair. The red cloak trailed behind him as he stumbled through the lab, and the camera's eye followed him. The door opened, a shaft of light penetrated through from the outside. He stepped through, bumping against the walls like a drunkard, and then the door shut behind. The tape kept rolling for a few minutes, until the computer shut it off. There were no more records on the computer.

Doom reached forward to close the log, then sat silently still, his chin on his chest, surrounded by a dead man's folly. He reached for the black chip he had taken off of the skeleton, and examined the markings carved into one side. This completed the code from the three chips he had taken from the Storyteller (_see Doom 2099 UG #45_), revealing at last the location of the Tomb of the Silver Warrior. He should be pleased, he thought, but he was strangely apprehensive. Not since the Savage Land had he felt such discord, such uncertainty about his own identity. The tape of his dead twin, coupled with his own fractured memories, only served to raise more questions, and this nagging doubt weighed heavily upon his brow.

KABLAMM!

Suddenly, the back door to the hidden chamber was blown into a million shards of metal by a violent pulse of pure energy. Three black garbed men rushed into the smoking breach and scattered, finding refuge behind tables and machinery on either side of the broken doorway. At the center of the room, Doom stood up, and turned calmly to face his attackers. From where they hid, he appeared poised in the middle of a lighted pulpit, surrounded by the dark and unknown vastness of the rest of the room. He stood nonchalantly with his arms down, completely at ease and confident, as if the deadly situation before him was naught but a play for his amusement. His verdant cape floated languidly above the floor behind him. The red lenses of his mask flashed briefly with reflected luminance.

"Welcome, Captain Baar," he said with dry fury. "I am pleased that you were able to make it this evening. I trust you bring an urgent message from Prime Minister Lange?"

The other men looked for a moment at their captain, but he did not meet their questioning glance. The captain stared straight ahead at his target, licking dry lips in anticipation of what was to come. If Doom's calm familiarity was meant to unnerve them, it was working. Without moving from his hiding place, the captain silently signaled his two men.

Lafferty moved in first. The young infantryman had spent the charge on his ASP to break down the door, so he circled to where he could get a clear shot with explosive rounds. He popped quickly up from behind a heavy metal table, raising his weapon to his shoulder as he did. BAM! BAM! BAM! He fired three consecutive shots at Doom, point blank. The explosive charges slammed into the armored figure, detonating on impact. The lighted stage where Doom had stood was instantly covered in smoke and haze, electrical equipment damaged by the blasts sparked and snapped, arcing blue streaks through the gray smoke. For a moment, the three soldiers thought that maybe they had succeeded. Then the smoke cleared, and Doom was standing unmoved behind a translucent personal shield. Lafferty's heart sank, knowing he had failed. Doom turned to look down at the soldier with contempt.

"Really," he said slowly, "explosive shells? How droll. I had expected a bit more panache from the Prime Minister than that." Doom waved his hand calmly over an optic control, and a laser cannon dropped out of the ceiling above the soldier's heads. Infrared sights activated and the gun swiveled toward the soldiers with deadly intent. In a weird trick of the light, Doom's frozen mask appeared to be smiling ever so slightly. Young Lafferty deftly avoided the first beam, rolling quickly for cover toward the back of the room. But as he stood to leap again he made a fatal pause, looking back over his shoulder at the tracking cannon. The laser fired and connected, slicing through a metal desk and continuing on, bisecting the soldier as it instantly incinerated his flesh.

Then the cannon turned toward the other two. Lt. Kelly was already on the move, as was his commander. They approached Doom from opposite sides, momentarily confounding the laser's targeting computer.

"Come now gentlemen," Doom said arrogantly, his hands tucked into his silver belt as he patiently watched their approach on the infrared monitor. "You really don't believe this desperate ploy will work, do you? Your deaths will be far less traumatic if you accept that it is inevitable."

"Never!" Lt. Kelly shouted, as he aimed his ASP at Doom. The invisible pulse activated with a loud thwap, and the high intensity beam slammed into Doom's body like a hurricane. The force lifted the unsuspecting armored monarch off of his feet and backwards four meters into a circular computer console behind him. The console crumpled under that impact, sparks flying and small fires erupting in the shattered components all around the prone figure.

Doom shook off the effects of the blast quickly, pushing himself to his feet as his eyes began to glow with barely contained rage. "That hurt," he muttered to himself disdainfully, angry too at his own lack of caution in light of this unknown weapon. He wasted little time at pointless self-recrimination though, returning fire from his gauntlets even as he extricated himself from the crushed console. Lt. Kelly leaped clear of a forceful blast of energy that gouged an impressive hole in one wall, carving a new opening into the cave beyond while rocky debris showered like raindrops through the room.

Now Captain Baar jumped in at last to engage his target at close quarters, hoping that Doom was sufficiently distracted not to notice him. He charged up his ASP, the knifelike weapon humming slightly, and aimed his killing stroke for that broad, exposed back. But with impeccable timing, Doom nimbly turned aside, as if he had seen the attack coming. Twisting out of range of the thrusting weapon, Doom slapped away his attacker, using Baar's own momentum against him to send the SACC officer careening across the floor. Doom was raising his gauntlets above the fallen soldier when a loud thwap heralded another pulse of energy being sent his way. Not as strong as the first one, Lt. Kelly's second and last attempt still managed to force the Latverian monarch back three or four steps. Doom blindly returned fire even as he fell backwards. This was all Captain Baar needed, as he sprang to his feet and charged Doom once more.

Dazed by the two-pronged attack, Doom still managed to catch one of Baar's arms in a powerful grip. But the Captain deftly avoided the other silver gloved hand as he thrust forward with the energized ASP. The blade found substance in the adamantium lanxide armor, and bit, burrowing deep into Doom's left side just below the rib cage.

"Arrghh!" Doom bellowed momentarily in rage and hurt. Then, still holding onto the Captain with one hand, he flung him bodily into the bank of monitors beside them. Glass broke and shattered as the Captain's flesh was battered against that barrier again, and again. Doom beat the man against the jagged wall with furious abandon, until Captain Baar hung from his grip like a bloody broken rag doll. He let the corpse drop to the floor with disgust, and sitting back against a metal railing, looked down to examine his own wound. The ASP was still imbedded into his flesh, the pulsing energy inhibiting the ability of the nanites to stem the flow of blood trickling out around the edges of the wound. He grasped the handle of the ASP in one hand and quickly pulled it free, grimacing with an intense pain that shot through his gut and would have sent a lesser man crumbling to the floor. But he was not a lesser man, he was Doom. He stood up straight, and his fierce eyes now searched the room for his remaining foe.

He found Lt. Kelly pinned under some rocky rubble that had cascaded onto him from above during their last exchange. The black garbed soldier was weaponless, and the spent ASP was harmlessly discarded beside him. He was covered in a thin film of gray dust that made him look even more pathetic, and his eyes were bright white with fear. Bleeding from several superficial wounds, he was struggling desperately to free himself from the debris that trapped him as Doom approached. Doom looked down on the soldier with cold cunning. Modifying the intensity of his gauntlet's power, he blasted away the rock that held his enemy, but curiously did not harm the soldier beneath. Free at last to move, Kelly was nonetheless petrified with fear as the armored giant leaned menacingly over him. Doom's anger was a palpable presence as he held one hand against his wounded side, blood seeping freely now to stain the silver glove.

"Get up!" Doom yelled at the soldier, kicking him with his metal boot, disgusted with the other's quivering cowardice. "Get up and get out of here!" he ordered.

Lt. Kelly wasted no time in backing crab-like away from that hurtful boot, before standing up against the back wall. Behind him was the opening into the cave, and the smell of rain wafted in from the night air beyond. But he dared not remove his eyes from the terrible hulking specter that glared at him from only a few steps away. If he turned to escape, he would surely be shot in the back!

"Go!" Doom shouted at him. "I grant you a pardon, you pathetic little worm," Doom explained through clenched teeth. "And if you survive what's out there, then take this message to your Prime Minister." He lifted the ASP in his hand to show the Lieutenant. "I've seen the worst that he can do, and it wasn't good enough! Tell him that! And tell him this toy will not work a second time!" Doom crushed the weapon in his glove and dropped the broken pieces to the ground. Behind Doom, a small explosion ripped through the computer equipment as the damage they had begun started to take on a life of its own. Fire was crackling and popping through the circuitry now, bathing Doom's dark green cape in a halo of orange light. The terrible mask was cloaked in darkness, and the red lenses of his mask glowed with a fierce intensity.

Lt. Kelly needed no further convincing than that, and he slowly backed away into the hole behind him, then turned and scrambled as fast as he could through the darkness for the cave's distant exit.

Doom watched him go, but did nothing more. He turned around to face the lab, as thick black smoke began to gather at the ceiling from the spreading fires. Anything left in the room was a total loss, but he had taken all that he came for. Still holding onto his side, he endured searing agony with each breath and tasted blood in his mouth as he staggered forward. There would be time for rest later he thought, looking down at the black chip he picked up off of the floor. He stepped up to the stuffed hyena head mounted on one wall, and placed his hand in its mouth, searching for the hidden switch. There were more explosions in the lab as toxic chemicals ignited - in a few moments there would be nothing left. Doom stumbled through the hidden passageway that opened before him, and slipped into a small room where a transport platform awaited his command. Setting the coordinates through a growing haze, he fought back the blackness which threatened to claim him, and stepped onto the platform. The energy platform powered up then passed through him as a rectangle of brilliant azure light lifted from the floor. When the light structure settled once more to the ground, Doom was gone. The secret room sealed shut automatically within its rocky crypt.

EPILOGUE ONE:

Lt. Kelly could hardly believe his good fortune as he ran out of the dark cave into the waning showers that bathed the rocky African kopje. In the misty dark he missed seeing the bright white skeleton that lay half buried in the soft earth near the cave's entrance, running right past it as he raced to escape a near certain death at the hands of Doom. He turned back only briefly to see the black smoke pouring out of the cave entrance, and cringed instinctively as massive explosions rocked the underground vault. Quickly scampering away, he scaled the hill rapidly in the dark so as to gain a better perspective on his current position. He was well trained in the tactics of jungle survival and movement behind enemy lines, and so he was calmly confident that he would be able to safely slip back into his own country. If he traveled only at night, keeping to the canyons and thick brush, he could navigate by the stars. At the top of the hill, he stopped to look at the sky, as the clouds were parting even then to reveal the brilliant starlight beyond. He smiled through the grime that covered his sweaty face, and his racing heartbeat began to calm. His only weapon was a small knife, but in three days, he figured to be back home. This was doable, he thought, all was not lost.

Then there was a sound like a giant snuffling from behind him, and a musty smell like something primordial. Lt. Kelly turned around, and through the darkness he locked eyes with a huge male lion not more than ten meters away.

Len shook his black mane briefly, sending a shower of water all around, muscles rippling beneath his tawny hide as his massive paws dug into the soft earth. He fixed cool amber eyes directly on the man in front of him, and a low rumbling growl emitted from his throat. The lion licked his lips, and began to stalk slowly and fearlessly toward the man.

Kelly crouched, reaching for his knife as he tried to maintain eye contact with the big cat. His heart began to pound furiously again, and the lion sensed it, quickening its pace. It leaped, launching itself like a torpedo at the SACC soldier.

A bloodcurdling scream was the last sound Lt. Kelly ever made.

EPILOGUE TWO:

Several days after the battle at Cavalier warrens, Prime Minister Lange was nervously pacing the floor of his private chambers in a palace retreat in the hills above Johannesburg. The news had been very unsettling of late. Not only had the SACC again suffered a terrible defeat in their unofficial border war, but his special assault team had not returned from the TKU. Tracking devices on Captain Baar and his teammates had verified that the men were all dead, scattered throughout the underground complex they had invaded. Doom had also disappeared, but given the damage to the underground warrens, it might be weeks before any bodies were found. His cabinet had to come to the distasteful conclusion that the team had failed in their mission.

The Governor of Defense marched softly into the room. "Mr. Prime Minister?" he said quietly. "Time to go."

The Prime Minister hesitated as he stared out of the window. The view of the lush hills swept down toward the city, his city. This was his birthplace, his domain. And he was running away from it.

"I cannot rule this country from a hiding place," he muttered sullenly.

The Governor stepped up to his side. "We've been over this, Robert," he said, with uncustomary familiarity. "We cannot protect you here, not from . . . him," he left the name unsaid. His leader knew perfectly well who he meant. "It is just for a little while, until we can get our military back up to strength. By then we'll know, one way or the other."

Robert Lange bowed his head, in silent guilt. "What will happen to them, when we're gone? They need our guidance, David."

"We've done all we can, sir," Governor Proctor put his hand gently on the Prime Minister's shoulder. "It will still be here, when we return."

"Do you think so?" the Prime Minister looked up at last. His face was streaked with tears, and his eyes had the glimmering look of child's confusion and hope.

"Yes sir, I do think so." The Governor of Defense looked away, saddened to see the dementia being brought on by the last few days of heavy medication necessary to keep the Prime Minister from a total nervous breakdown. In the past few days, the SACC had quietly pulled out of the northern border towns of Mozambique, having suffered heavy financial and physical losses. Many of the factories had been destroyed when their secret mission as hiding places for troops and armaments was exposed. The black workers that followed the words of the Messengers had rallied together in the absence of the SACC guards that had previously kept their religion viciously repressed. Worse yet, there appeared to be a new messiah who walked among the Messengers. A boy, who had survived the worst of the war, who had been shot through the heart but had risen from the dead. There were even rumors that the boy had a guardian in the form of a great male lion who walked with him. Now, a growing unrest was spreading through all of the factory towns, fueled by the message of this new messiah who spoke of equality for all people. The SACC now had nearly as much to fear from a coup inside the country, as they did an assault from Doom. The Defense Governor alone knew the full extent of their military losses, and that consequently the safety of any of the current ruling cabinet was in grave jeopardy. He quietly guided the Prime Minister to the door.

"We're going to Sweden?"

"Yes, sir, for a short while at least."

"I hear it is cold there," the Prime Minister looked around the room. "Did I remember to pack my sweater?"

"Yes, sir," the Governor sighed patiently. "Everything you need will be waiting for you there."

**The End.**

"_**In the arts of Life, man invents nothing, **_

_**but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself . . ."**_

_**Man & Superman.**_

_**By George Bernard Shaw**_

DS

September 6, 1998.

Next: Be prepared for another Double Sized issue of Doom 2099 UG as we celebrate the 50th issue of the Master of Menace, the Lord of Latveria, the Titan of Time Travel, the one and only Doom 2099 himself! New villains and old appear as a new chapter in Doom's fantastic future unfolds! There will be secrets revealed, and questions answered, so be here in 60 days True Believers! Um, I'd explain how we got to Issue # 50 so soon, but I'm out of room!


End file.
